Panasonic trial reveals strong interest in onboard connectivity
Passenger engagement with IFE and connectivity increased and passenger complaints decreased on one of the world’s major airlines according a recent trial conducted by Panasonic Avionics. Results are posted on the company’s blog.
At the end of 2020, Panasonic Avionics conducted the airline, gave its passengers unlimited Wi-Fi in-flight. The goal of the multi-month experiment was to see how the airline could enhance its passenger relationships by providing high quality Wi-Fi on board. The results were significant, said the company.
The average user engagement time increased 23 percent, passengers watched 41 more minutes of streaming content with Netflix and YouTube as the top choices, and their data consumption jumped from 1.6 gigabytes before the trial to 3 gigabytes as it was conducted. At the same time, passenger complaints about slow Internet in-flight fell by up to 61 percent.
The trial was possible because of Panasonic’s Gen-3 network of high speed, high bandwidth Ku-band satellites, which places capacity where it is most needed. Last month, the first extreme high throughput satellite (XTS) to join the network entered service over Asia-Pacific.
Full details of the trial and its results have been published today on Panasonic’s blog here.
