Skift Take
The faster Wi-Fi and new Red In-Flight Entertainment are great news for passengers, but we hope Virgin America will find a business model that will help it keep the service free in future.
There's little going on in the skies quite as entertaining as the battle to bring you better, faster, stronger Wi-Fi.
In a surprise disruption to the status quo, Virgin America has announced that it will introduce ViaSat’s new Exede Ku/Ka-Band Satellite powered Wi-Fi on its 10 new A320s, starting this year.
This was a head-turning announcement because Virgin America became the first U.S. airline to roll-out fleet-wide installations of Gogo's air-to-ground (ATG-4) Wi-Fi connections on all 53 of its A320s, just at the end of last year.
Entertainment Is Everything
So what caused this sudden strategic shift by Virgin America? As we've reported in various ways on a number of occasions, tomorrow's passenger experience improvements focus heavily on giving passengers the most entertainment options possible, especially on longer flights.
This is particularly important to airlines which need to differentiate to compete without giving up valuable revenue space onboard through strategies like taking out rows of seats to add legroom. The popular tendency today is to drive passengers to distraction, occupying them with enough in-flight entertainment and in-flight connectivity choices that long flights just — pardon — fly-by.
But content is expensive, as is in-flight entertainment equipment. Some airlines offer BYOD (bring your own device) options only, others complementing their existing product with additional entertainment options powered by passengers' own devices and content links.
The latter model drives Virgin America's latest decision. This upgrade to ViaSat's new Ku- and Ka-band service will give passengers Wi-Fi powerful enough to stream video content at 35,000 feet, and complements the Beta launch of the airline's updated Red in-flight entertainment platform.
High-Capacity, Fast-De
