66 per cent of travellers would use their mobile phones inflight
Hamburg, Germany | April 10, 2014– A poll of German travellers has revealed a huge appetite for inflight mobile services including SMS, email and mobile-enabled internet access in the aircraft cabin.

Over 66 per cent of Germans surveyed said they would use their mobile phones during a flight if they had the option, mainly to stay entertained during long hours in the air.

Almost half (47 per cent) of those would use an inflight mobile connection for surfing the internet and just over a fifth (21 per cent) would check social media sites, while 58 per cent would opt for text messaging.

Almost a third (32 per cent) of people said they would use the service to make a call or check voicemail at 30,000ft.

The survey of 2,000 German consumers conducted by AeroMobile, a leading mobile phone operator for the aviation industry, reflects Germany’s increasing appetite for mobile technology.

More than half of people questioned said they expect inflight mobile connectivity to become standard in the next few years and 60 per cent believe an airline with an inflight mobile service is cutting edge.

“The results of this survey certainly reflect our experience at AeroMobile,” said Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile.

“In 2013 we saw close to an 80 per cent increase in the number of travellers using their mobile phones in the aircraft cabin and data usage on our network went up 10 fold. We also saw a 50 per cent increase in SMS traffic.”

German flag-carrier Lufthansa launched its inflight mobile phone service with AeroMobile earlier this year and has confirmed it will roll out mobile connectivity across its entire long-haul fleet of over 100 aircraft.

The AeroMobile network allows passengers to roam just as they would abroad. The company has live roaming agreements with over 250 mobile phone operators worldwide, including German networks T-Mobile, Vodafone, e-Plus and O2 Germany.

Mobile data and text messaging at 30,000ft prove a hit with Brits
Hamburg, Germany | April 9, 2014– British travellers are more likely to pick up their mobile phones inflight to send an email or browse the web than to make a call from the aircraft cabin.

More than three quarters of travellers surveyed by AeroMobile, a leading mobile phone operator for the aviation industry, said they would use mobile-enabled internet access to check emails, browse the internet or update their Facebook or Twitter status at 30,000ft.

More than half (55 per cent) would opt to send a text message and a quarter would use an instant messaging service, but fewer than a third (17 per cent) would make a call inflight.

Almost half of respondents said that inflight mobile services would help them alleviate the boredom of long hours spent in an aircraft cabin and over a third are looking to their own mobile devices to keep them entertained.

Almost half of people questioned said they expect inflight mobile connectivity to become standard in the next few years and over a third believe an airline with an inflight mobile service is cutting edge.

“The results of this survey certainly reflect our experience at AeroMobile,” said Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile.

“In 2013 we saw close to an 80 per cent increase in the number of travellers using their mobile phones in the aircraft cabin and data usage on our network went up ten-fold. We also saw a 50 per cent increase in SMS traffic.”

The AeroMobile network allows passengers to roam just as they would abroad. The company has live roaming agreements with over 250 mobile phone operators worldwide, including EE, O2, Vodafone and Three in the UK.

The service is available across eleven airlines including Virgin Atlantic, Etihad, Emirates and Lufthansa.

• Lufthansa will have the largest connected B747-8 fleet in the world

London, UK | February 6, 2014– Today, Boeing will deliver the first B747-8 to be fully line-fitted with the AeroMobile inflight mobile service. The aircraft took its delivery flight from Seattle to Frankfurt on 6 February 2014.

Europe’s largest airline, Lufthansa, will receive the landmark delivery, which will open the path for all future B747-8s to be fitted with AeroMobile connectivity. The German flag-carrier has confirmed it will roll out mobile connectivity across its entire long-haul fleet of over 100 aircraft this year.

A registered mobile service provider for the aviation industry, AeroMobile provides the mobile network for airline passengers to roam on inflight. AeroMobile has roaming agreements with more than 240 mobile phone operators worldwide, including German networks T-Mobile, Vodafone, e-Plus and O2 Germany, as well as AT&T and T-Mobile in the USA and EE, O2, Vodafone and Three in the UK.

Lufthansa has 19 B747-8s set to enter their fleet. Nine of these aircraft have already been delivered and will be retro-fitted this year. The additional deliveries will leave the Boeing facility in Seattle fully line-fit with AeroMobile connectivity. Once all of the aircraft have been delivered, Lufthansa will have the largest B747-8 fleet in the world, all with full mobile connectivity.

The aircraft, which accommodates 362 passengers and is the world’s longest passenger airliner, will be routed to destinations such as Washington, Mexico City, Hong Kong Delhi and Bangalore. As well as AeroMobile connectivity, the B747-8 will be delivered with the full Fly-Net offering of Wi-Fi and Live TV and Mobile.

Two aircraft types have now been cleared for AeroMobile line-fit at Boeing; the B777-300ER, with recipients including Thai Airways,Etihad Airways and Singapore Airlines, and the B747-8. AeroMobile also operates on B747-400 and B737 aircraft.

“It’s great news that Boeing will be rolling out AeroMobile connectivity on their B747-8 fleet and Lufthansa clearly recognises the value of offering this service alongside Wi-Fi and inflight entertainment. In fact, our research show that inflight mobile connectivity actually complements inflight Wi-fi and results in increased passenger satisfaction and additional revenue for airlines,” said Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile.

“Consumers expect to be connected 24/7 and being up in the air is no longer an exception. In 2013 we saw close to an 80 per cent increase in the number of passengers using their mobile phones in the aircraft cabin, data usage increased ten-fold and SMS traffic increased by 50 per cent.”

• German flag-carrier adds inflight mobile network to its connectivity product

London, UK | February 6, 2014– Europe’s largest airline, Lufthansa, has launched its inflight mobile phone service with AeroMobile, allowing passengers to use their own mobile devices to text and browse online at 30,000 feet via Lufthansa FlyNet.

With eight aircraft already in service, the German flag-carrier has confirmed it will roll out mobile connectivity across its entire long-haul fleet of over 100 aircraft this year.

The AeroMobile network, which allows passengers to roam just as they would abroad, is already available across selected A330s in the Lufthansa fleet, flying from Munich and Frankfurt to North America and the Middle East.

The roll out means that this year, customers flying on any of Lufthansa’s long-haul routes will be able to stay connected using their personal mobile devices inflight.

AeroMobile has roaming agreements with more than 240 mobile phone operators worldwide, including German networks T-Mobile, Vodafone, e-Plus and O2 Germany, as well as AT&T and T-Mobile in the USA and EE, O2, Vodafone and Three in the UK.

The service is simple to use; passengers simply turn on their mobile device to connect to the network, and are billed directly by their mobile operator. Prices are typically similar to ‘rest of world’ terrestrial roaming rates.

“It’s great news that Lufthansa will be rolling out AeroMobile connectivity on their entire fleet this year; we know that passengers are keen to keep their mobile phones on inflight and Lufthansa clearly recognises the value of offering this service,” said Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile.

“The service will give travellers the flexibility to use their mobile devices as much or as little as they like during a flight, whether it’s to send an SMS to a loved one, keep on top of emails or update their Facebook status,” continued Rogers.

• U.S passengers now one step closer to having inflight mobile connectivity

London, UK | December 13, 2013–

Leading inflight mobile phone operator AeroMobile has today welcomed the move by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that may lead to a removal of the ban on using mobile devices onboard U.S aircraft.

In response to yesterday’s meeting, where a preliminary vote opened a period for public comment, AeroMobile CEO Kevin Rogers said that the FCC’s move would bring the U.S. in line with the rest of the world and give U.S. airlines the option to provide the same service as their international competitors.

“I’m pleased to see that common sense prevailed yesterday. There is no reason to maintain a ruling that is no longer relevant – the technology used to provide inflight GSM services is proven, and has been operational across Europe, Asia and the Middle East for more than five years.” said Rogers.

“We have hundreds of connected flights flying to and from the U.S. every day, but at the moment the service has to be switched off when we reach U.S. airspace. We know there is demand for this service from U.S. travellers – last month a quarter of the people using the service on our transatlantic routes connected from U.S. mobile networks,” continued Rogers.

AeroMobile’s inflight mobile service is active on more than 170 aircraft across nine airlines including Emirates, Etihad, SAS, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic. The operator has over 240 agreements with mobile phone operators around the world including AT&T and T Mobile in the United States.

“We look forward to working with the FCC over the coming months and will be demonstrating the value of the service to both customers and airlines, based on our experience,” said Rogers.

“I’m hopeful that sensible discussions can now take place about the practicalities of operating this service in the U.S. Ultimately, it will be up to individual airlines to decide on the right inflight mobile connectivity package for their passengers, whether this is SMS only or the full service, including voice and data,” continued Rogers.

 

• Potential ruling will benefit passengers and airlines

United Kingdom | November 22, 2013–

Leading inflight mobile phone operator AeroMobile welcomes the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s move to adopt regulations to permit the use of mobile devices in U.S. airspace.

Speaking in response to the announced agenda for the upcoming FCC meeting, AeroMobile CEO Kevin Rogers said that initiating a proceeding on inflight mobile connectivity was a step in the right direction, with benefits for both airlines and domestic and international travellers.

“We are in an era where being connected is expected and most airline passengers travel with a smartphone. Enabling mobile connectivity will enhance consumer choice and complement other inflight connectivity options available today,” said Rogers.

“The AeroMobile service operates almost seamlessly across the world, with the notable exception of the United States. We have many connected flights flying to and from the U.S. every day, and being able to offer connectivity in U.S. airspace will make a huge difference to the passenger experience,” continued Rogers.

AeroMobile’s inflight mobile service is active on more than 170 aircraft across nine airlines including Emirates, Etihad, SAS, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic.

All Virgin Atlantic flights between the United States and London Gatwick offer the AeroMobile service, as do all of Aer Lingus’ transatlantic flights from Ireland. Emirates, Etihad and Lufthansa all provide AeroMobile connectivity on selected routes into the U.S., with further roll-out planned over the coming months.

“The Notice of Proposed Rule Making is also great news for our current airline partners. As well as offering an improved service, extending coverage to the United States means increased ancillary revenues for those airlines that offer mobile connectivity,” said Rogers.

”And it’s good news for U.S. airlines, potentially enabling them to provide the same levels of onboard connectivity as their international competitors.”

“We are seeing increasing demand for our services as more and more airlines and passengers realise the benefits of inflight mobile connectivity. The ease of using your mobile phone inflight makes it perfect for checking voicemail, sending SMS messages, checking emails or updating your social media status,” continued Rogers.

“In fact, SMS is the most popular service on the AeroMobile network; 60 per cent of connected passengers use the inflight mobile network to send text messages. We’ve also seen data usage shoot up by more than 200 per cent this year,” added Rogers.

AeroMobile has over 240 agreements with mobile phone operators around the world including AT&T and T Mobile in the United States, meaning its inflight network is already accessible to U.S. travellers on international airlines.

 

IFExpress is probably never going to get caught up from the AIX fun in Hamburg but don’t tell us we didn’t try. Here is a news release from the then portable IFE supplier digEcor (with some 13,000 L7 portables sold) – who now has an installed IFE system called GLIDE. Here is their release: “Inflight entertainment leader digEcor, Inc. is excited to announce the recent signing of a deal to deliver their all new embedded inflight entertainment system, dubbed GLIDE IFE, to US charter carrier Air Transport International (ATI). Slated to launch on ATI’s fleet of Boeing 757 passenger-freighter Combi aircraft, digEcor is also providing an exciting lineup of digital entertainment options including Hollywood blockbusters and classics, the latest music and videos, and a suite of entertaining games. “We are excited to be the launch partner with digEcor and be the first to have the GLIDE IFE system,” said ATI President Dennis Manibusan. “We shopped around for an embedded system, and the GLIDE IFE system met all of our immediate needs in terms of cost, reliability, unctionality and providing a high level of passenger entertainment.” DigEcor’s Sales and Marketing Director Ben Fuller commented, “We’re more commonly known in the IFE industry as the portable provider and we’re thrilled to show our continued product diversity with our embedded GLIDE IFE. We’re honored to have ATI as our launch partner and we’re committed to their success moving forward.”For more information on GLIDE IFE or content services provided by digEcor, visit us online at www.digEcor.com.” We note that Ben told IFExpress that, “We finally found the right partner,” and we have it on authority that they have had a loot meetings with an Australian company. Here is a three seat group and a system block diagram. The digEcor folks told IFExpress that their progression from portable to imbedded was a logical growth step which is a path others have followed. In their case, the system looses a battery and docking station and inserts a Konotron server and WAP for the streaming solution. We note that they have an optional SSD memory and they tell us that more, bigger screen sizes are coming. The company is targeting the regional air line market, one that has a lot of growth potential. Said Ben, “We want to be a complete customer service provider.” That about says it all.

Meet Kevin Rogers, AeroMoblle’s new CEO. He has been with the company for 5 years but was originally from Telenor in the Regulations and Roaming business. If you remember, Telenor is based in Norway but Kevin is now back in the UK and we hear Pal Bjordal is going back to Norway. Kevin told IFExpress that the AeroMobile focus is to get more telephony on aircraft as the demand for voice, text (and email, for that matter) is booming. If you remember, AeroMobile is part of the Panasonic Global Communications Suite – AeroMobile provides the mobile phone part (biggest demand) while Panasonic builds the hardware for their platform residence. It makes sense because this way, Panasonic can provide the total solution – they provide the Wi-Fi and AeroMobile the phone. With phones, the billing and usage are clean and clearly understood, after all, inflight phone charges go directly to you phone bill – no airline collections, not to mention the lack of onboard hassle. No wonder everybody likes existing billing systems! “The airlines really have a choice as do the passengers,”noted Rogers, “as the phone solution provides a pretty low bandwidth solution, and if they want to use Facebook on their iPads or laptops, Wi-fi is also available.” The airlines want the passenger to have options and they offer both, and by in large, they install GSM and Wi-Fi.” Mr. Rogers also made it quite clear that the full connectivity solution, Wi-Fi, is fine for tho data geeks but the mobile phone user has voice, text and light Internet data so if you only have a mobile phone, connectivity is within the passenger’s reach. Kevin also pointed out that data roaming prices are coming down and he expects that it will reach the point whereby it is not considered a “premium service”. Certainly, IFExpress see’s the value of competition here and the tremendous traffic growth seen might be some indication of that fact. Further, they have launched a new website that now features B-to-C focus differing from the previous one that was more B-to-B. At the show AeroMobile announced a new Aer Lingus contract and Kevin expects five new customers this year with total airplane installations doubling.

If you are a fan of real-time, airline, flight tracking radars, we have a couple links for your viewing enjoyment: flightradar24 and radarbox24. Both websites place aircraft flights superimposed over your favorite location – US and Europe are amazing. China, on the other hand, looks devoid of air traffic but we know that is not true. We would like to hear from an air traffic genius as to why that is? We will let you know what we hear.

– Irish demonstrate increasing demand for inflight mobile services, reports AeroMobile

London, UK | March 5, 2013– Irish tourists and business travellers have been quick to adopt inflight mobile services, according to AeroMobile, the leading mobile phone operator for the aviation industry.

Just 12 months after the first AeroMobile-connected flight to Dublin, the service provider has already transferred 25,000 text messages and 900 calls on flights to and from Ireland. Over 10,000 mobile devices have connected to the AeroMobile network on Irish flights.

Emirates and Etihad both operate flights to and from Ireland with AeroMobile connectivity onboard; the airlines fly from Dublin to Dubai and Abu Dhabi respectively. SAS also operate connected flights from Oslo and in the coming weeks Aer Lingus will be adding AeroMobile services to a number of long haul aircraft.

Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile, said: “At AeroMobile we’ve seen demand for inflight connectivity double over the past 12 months, and we’re pleased to see an increasing appetite for the service from Irish mobile users. With smartphone ownership on the rise, it makes sense that more and more consumers want to use their devices in the sky.”

“In 2013 we expect at least ten flights a day on Irish routes to offer AeroMobile’s network onboard. That’s 300 flights every month or 3,650 a year,” continues Rogers.

AeroMobile is a UK-based GSM service provider for the aviation industry and a member of the GSMA. The company provides technology and services that allow the safe use of passenger’s own mobile phones onboard aircraft; the AeroMobile system is approved for use by aviation authorities around the world, including the FAA and EASA.

AeroMobile currently has roaming agreements with over 215 mobile phone operators, covering more than 100 countries worldwide.

– Change of leadership at aviation GSM operator

London, UK | February 27, 2013– AeroMobile, the leading mobile phone operator for the aviation industry, has announced the appointment of Kevin Rogers as CEO. Rogers, previously Head of Revenue Development at AeroMobile, takes over from Pal Bjordal, who has led the company for the past two and a half years.

Bjordal will return to his native Norway and to the Oslo-based headquarters of Telenor, one of the world’s largest telecoms companies and a major shareholder in AeroMobile.

Rogers joined AeroMobile in February 2008 from Telenor, where he was Director and Vice President of Group Marketing.
He has also held a number of roles with Nortel Networks, including Director of Sales for the company’s Canadian operation.

Rogers will take over Bjordal’s responsibilities from 1 March, driving forward the company’s plans for expansion in 2013.

“Pal has laid the foundations for a very exciting phase in AeroMobile’s development; we have seen accelerated growth over the past 12 months and 2013 promises to be a landmark year for us,” said Kevin Rogers, CEO of AeroMobile.
“I’m delighted to be taking over the reins at such a crucial stage in the company’s development; this year we’ve already seen traffic on the network outstrip the last six months of 2012, and we’re aiming to double the number of airlines offering the AeroMobile service before the end of the year,” continues Rogers.