Emirates Airlines, one of the world’s most highly rated carriers, has worked to be one of the innovators in bringing sophisticated connectivity options to passengers. In the second part of this two-part interview, Emirates Airlines Vice President Patrick Brannelly spoke with Satellite News about the past, present and future of Emirates’ in-flight service — how the system was developed, new enhancements to its current system and the airlines’ long-term outlook to meet its customers’ needs in the future.

 

Brannelly: We have satcoms on our entire wide bodied fleet and have had phones on every seat for years since we started putting them on seats in 1996 with the arrival of the Boeing 777. From a technical standpoint, all we needed was a system that would capture the mobile phone signal on the aircraft and then connect to the regular satellite telephone system. We mooted this requirement first in about 1998 and said someone needs to invent this so people can use their mobile phones on an airplane. It was probably around 2002, when Arinc and SITA started to look quite seriously at this. We signed up with Arinc in 2005 and we launched AeroMobile in March 2008.

    There was a lot of technology that needed to be invented or adapted from the ground-based technologies to get the service to work on the airplane. You then needed to get certification from the Air Worthiness Authorities. This was a massive task. To achieve that, you need a sponsor. Emirates Airlines was the sponsor. It is quite rare that airlines will buy technology that has not been invented yet, but we were so convinced this was the right thing to do, not just in terms of the needs of passengers, but in knowing that the growing adoption of mobile devices would fuel this need. If mobile phones were a risk to aircraft systems, then it needs to be assessed and managed going forward, so there were huge technical challenges that had to be faced. There are two good solutions out there right now, AeroMobile, also called Panasonic eXPhone, and OnAir using quite similar methodologies from a technical point of view.

 

Brannelly: Yes. The AeroMobile system is being upgraded to allow GPRS data. We should switch that on within the next month. To achieve that, we need to use either Inmarsat’s Swift64 or SwiftBroadband network. It is part of the roadmap. The ability to use your Blackberry here is far more convenient to the business traveler. We know customers do not prefer to communicate to their offices through SMS, but we see about 10,000 SMS messages sent or received each day and about 300,000 each month from our flights. It is about adding convenience for the business traveler, but probably also kids that are big fans of the messenger service.

 

Brannelly: We don’t aim to make money out of these services. We are not under any illusions that we are going to make money out of it. Installing these boxes on aircraft and maintaining them is expensive. It is not like buying a modem for your house. We would quite like our service providers to make money out of it, as they need to be profitable, but that is not why we are doing it. That might sound unbelievable, but we don’t make a profit out of the great wines we serve. We don’t make profit out of the food we serve, or the mood lighting or starlit ceilings on our aircraft. It is difficult to quantify, but improving the overall passenger experience has been one of the factors in Emirates success. If customers are happy, they will come and fly with us again. That’s where we make money.

 

Brannelly: We did not go with Connexion by Boeing because we weren’t convinced about the sustainability of the business case and we were worried we would be left with antennas on our aircraft where there is no service. That is what happened to some of the other carriers. The business model has to be sustainable. If we offer passengers a service they expect it to remain, to be able to expect it. When we rejected the Connexion by Boeing product we analyzed what people wanted to use the product for, a lot of it was to keep informed on what was going on down below. So, we developed a news system, and since 1993 we’ve transmitted live news headlines over satellite to all our flights, updated throughout the flight, so passengers know exactly what is going on. It satisfies the needs to know what is going on. By providing the news headlines, we reduce the need for people to access the Internet by a large percent, as many people just want to catch up on sport results and news.

 

Brannelly: As far as Emirates is concerned, we think offering these services is important. Passengers want to be connected. At any one time, there are a number of people on a flight for emergency travel or having a crisis in their life. So, the convenience for those people is huge. Our passengers have been able to SMS and email from every seat since 2003. It is not an elegant solution, but it satisfies the need to communicate. You look to make it easier going forward where people can switch their phones, laptops or Blackberries and have the convenience of using their own equipment. So, satisfying the need is one thing, but making it as convenient as possible is another thing. Obviously, price is an issue. Saying you can use the Internet but it will cost $200 probably annoys you more than satisfies you so the overall experience has to be good.