Neo Space Group (NSG), a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and a partner in SES Open Orbits, has secured more airline customers for its ThinKom Solutions Ka2517-based inflight connectivity solution which will use SES’s interoperable GEO and MEO satellite services.
As an aero ISP in the Open Orbits ecosystem, NSG has already secured both Thai Airways International and Turkish Airlines as customers; the former contract covers more than 40 aircraft (both A321LR linefits and 777 retrofits), and the latter covers linefit A350s.
“What I could say first is you have seen two announcements on the press, but they are not our launch customers,” Philippe Carette, who serves as NSG’s chief operating officer and president of its satellite communications division, said in reference to the already disclosed Thai and Turkish deals.
“We have other customers that for the moment decided not to express that. It isn’t public information,” Carette told Runway Girl Network at the SATELLITE 2025 conference and exhibition in Washington D.C. He reckons that NSG will be at liberty to disclose more information at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg.
Will these new undisclosed deals be associated with the Airbus HBCplus linefit supplier-furnished IFC program, RGN asked Carette? After all, both the Thai and Turkish deals include Airbus linefit installs under HBCplus. “Not only, not only,” said Carette. “Definitively what we propose to the market in cooperation with SES is both retrofit and also linefit solution.”
The Ka-band side of HBCplus uses the same Ka2517 VICTS antenna hardware as found in SES Open Orbits’ retrofit package.
During SATELLITE 2025, SES global head of aviation Andrew Ruszkowski also confirmed to RGN that new airline announcements are imminent. “We have to respect the airlines’ wishes about when those announcements are being made, but I hope we’ll be able to do that shortly,” he said.
NSP and China Satcom subsidiary AeroSat Link (ASL) are the first connectivity service providers to join SES Open Orbits but Ruszkowski revealed that “we’ll probably be adding more CSPs in the future.”
When SES completes its acquisition of Intelsat, which is expected in the second half of this year, it will assume the aero ISP business of Intelsat. Should we assume that Intelsat will be favored for aero ISP work thereafter, we wondered.
“Well, I can’t really talk about what the strategy will be after the acquisition,” said the SES executive, honoring the regulatory process.
He added, “What I’m fairly confident of is that what we’ve built in SES Open Orbits is of real value And I see it existing after the acquisition in some shape or form. And I mean we wouldn’t be making the investments into this system today if we didn’t feel that was the case.”
Interestingly, Intelsat is also sitting on unannounced customers for its Gilat/formerly Stellar Blu Sidewinder electronically steered antenna (ESA)-based multi-orbit IFC solution, as powered by Intelsat’s Ku-band GEO satellite network and Eutelsat OneWeb’s Ku-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) service.
During the 11 March opening general session at SATELLITE 2025, Intelsat CEO David Wajagras revealed that the firm has secured agreements with two more international airlines for multi-orbit inflight connectivity.
To date, Intelsat has announced Air Canada, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Japan Airlines as customers. Air Canada’s manager inflight Wi-Fi and analytics, André Patrick confirmed at the show that 15 regional jets in its fleet have already been fitted.
All eyes are now on AIX in Hamburg in the hopes that some of the new IFC deals will be revealed.
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Featured image credited to Mary Kirby
