Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines have signed on for Airbus HBCplus Ka-band satellite-supported broadband in-flight connectivity.
Thai Airways International will equip its 12 new A321LRs with the HBCplus Ka system. These aircraft are due to be delivered in Q4 2025. Turkish Airlines has chosen HBCplus to equip 14 new A350 Family aircraft.
For both these airline contracts, the related hardware, including the Thinkom Ka-band antenna, is integrated and provided by in‐cabin and satellite hardware solutions expert Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI). Both customers have chosen SES’s MEO + GEO Ka-band offering from the HBCplus managed service provider (MSP) catalogue.
The service will be delivered by SES along with one of its key SES Open Orbits connectivity service partners, global space services company Neo Space Group (NSG), a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). SES Open Orbits is a network of global and regional Ka-band satellite operators created to deliver seamless inflight connectivity.
Aviation news service Runway Girl Network explains that the HBCplus programme is disruptive and groundbreaking in that it uncouples the inflight connectivity hardware from the connectivity service and enables airlines to switch MSPs without changing the hardware.
To date, Airbus has secured Ka-band HBCplus orders across four aircraft families: the A320, A330, A350 and A380. In addition to Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines, Airbus counts Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Air India, Air Algerie and Philippine Airlines as HBCplus linefit customers – and Emirates is retrofitting the kit to Airbus A380s.