Satcom Direct Becomes Preferred In-flight Connectivity Supplier to Luxaviation

Satcom Direct Becomes Preferred In-flight Connectivity Supplier to Luxaviation

Luxaviation has established a new three-year preferred supplier in-flight connectivity (IFC) supplier agreement with Satcom Direct for its individual business jet owners, flight crews and passengers.

The Luxembourg-based private jet charter company’s fleet includes a total of 110 business jets and turboprop aircraft along with 24 total helicopters. Luxaviation Chief Operating Officer Stuart Williamson told Avionics International that decisions regarding how many of their aircraft will receive new antennas, modems and other connectivity-enabling upgrades are based on the decision of each individual aircraft owner that they work with.

“Every Luxaviation client has individual needs when it comes to Satcom connectivity for their aircraft. Furthermore, the solutions will vary depending on the aircraft and its fitted equipment,” Williamson said. “In order to provide perfectly tailored solutions for each of our aircraft owners that specifically meet their individual needs, the Luxaviation Group needs to be able to rely on a supplier that will ensure that every detail is correctly addressed to meet the client’s requirements. But it doesn’t stop here – after-sales support is just as important so that any technical or customer support requirement is dealt with impeccably for our clients without any hassle or delay.”

According to Satcom Direct, the three-year agreement includes access to IFC that will support “a plethora of inflight requirements including voice, message, email, and internet services,” the company said in a July 13 press release. Inmarsat’s Jet Connex and SwiftBroadband services will enable cabin and cockpit Wi-Fi access across the Luxaviation fleet.

Williamson said most Luxaviation pilots use electronic flight bag applications in-flight and will see their data consumption needs supported by their new access to Jet Connex and SwiftBroadband.

“Flight tracking and updated exchange of flight-critical information is being enhanced by high-speed connectivity. Applications are becoming more “data-hungry” than before thus the requirement for high-speed data transfer. Luxaviation is a global operator, therefore a constant flow of information received in real-time is not only enhancing the customer experience but helps our flight crews, pilots and cabin, to offer a better service, being able to arrange or sort out issues that our clients may have while deplaning. Finally, high-speed internet means also better management of information and usage of less paper or more efficient decision making, so another step towards our sustainability goal,” Williamson said.

Satcom Direct has already begun working with Luxaviation under the new agreement, which also includes a cybersecurity element. The company provides cybersecurity services from its data center in Florida to include threat monitoring, aircraft data encryption, and a customer aircraft network configuration based on the individual needs of end users.

Michael Skou Christensen, senior vice president of Satcom Direct International, explained to Avionics how they manage Swiftbroadband and JetConnex IFC on a per-flight basis.

“Once an aircraft is activated with SD we are on 24/7 standby to provide service to the customer. Luxaviation customers using services like Swiftbroadband and JetConneX services expect continual availability of the services that they pay for and the performance has to be there when they need it,” Christensen said. “Working with our partners like Inmarsat, we have developed a wide array of unique and intelligent diagnostic and management tools that interact and integrate with partner networks to enable us to get ahead of any issues that can occur from time to time. Often our Network Operations Centre, that continually monitors all data usage, metrics and aircraft performance, know about and resolve an issue before we receive any reports from customers.”

The Satcom Direct agreement comes as Luxaviation and its European and African subsidiaries continue to expand its fleet and scope of operations in recent months. In April, an Embraer Legacy 650 jet was added to ExecuJet Africa, while a Bombardier Global 7500 joined ExecuJet Europe. German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer Lilium has a new partnership with Luxaviation making the private jet company responsible for airline operations of their 7-Seater Jet including securing approvals and managing pilots.

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