Welcome to the #PaxEx Podcast, which tracks the evolution of the airline passenger experience and aviation’s sustainability initiatives.
We’re pleased to share our interview with Bill Milroy, chief technology officer of ThinKom Solutions, which produces the popular VICTS antenna that is powering Ku- and Ka-band IFC in the market and is now poised to support multi-orbit Ka-band MEO/GEO IFC for SES’s airline clients, and Ka-band GEO/HEO IFC for some of Viasat’s Global Xpress customers.
Notably, ThinKom’s agnostic approach to antenna hardware means that its Ka2517 antenna is able to serve as the conduit for MEO, GEO and HEO Ka-band connectivity today, but can easily facilitate a LEO layer down the road when Telesat Lightspeed is available, or indeed Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
ThinKom is also offering a hybrid package that enables operators to pair its VICTS hardware with a Hughes-made Ku-band electronically steered antenna (ESA) to support Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO service. “The ESA just adds proprietary stovepipe Ku-band capabilities if that’s what the airline wants to have,” noted Milroy.
This approach to the market differs from the more proprietary LEO-only model espoused by SpaceX, which now counts thousands of aircraft tails in its backlog including those operated by full-fleet customers United Airlines, Air France, WestJet and Qatar Airways, the latter of which is already flying Starlink on 15 Boeing 777s.
And so we kicked off our interview with Milroy with the question: will Starlink vacuum up the IFC market? What follows is a very candid conversation about the current state of play and opportunities that are just on the horizon for airlines.
Please note that this interview was conducted on the sidelines of the APEX Global Expo, which took place just before the US Presidential Election. As such, some of the overseas concerns highlighted by your author in advance of the election could perhaps be even more acute today.
