Wi-Fi and LCC: Spirit Airlines and Thales team up
This is a special feature from PAX Tech's 2022 October APEX EXPO issue on page 20.
Spirit Airlines Flight 42 from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport left on time at a little after 2:30 p.m. on August 27 with a full load of passengers and a new antenna linkup with a Thales satellite providing a high-speed pipe to the aircraft.
It was slightly more than a month after the low-cost airline from Mirmar, Florida announced it was going full-on high-speed connectivity with the help of Thales and its FlytLIVE solution that would cover the airline’s network across the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. When the A320 reached a safe altitude, I set out to work with a MacBook Pro laptop and iPhone 12 to see how much Internet activity I could cram into the two-hour flight.
Streaming YouTube fly-tying videos full screen on Spirit Airlines Flight 42
Slowdowns and wait times were few during the time I was aboard. I watched YouTube videos, loaded pictures and a news entry onto the PAX International website while sending text messages on my iPhone and laptop and streaming tunes on Apple Music. Several of those tasks were carried out simultaneously throughout the trip. The seat pitch in Economy Class made for tight work, but all the technology I brought aboard functioned as desired.
Spirit’s log-in is similar to others in the world’s fleet. To connect, passengers choose Spirit_WiFi and open a web browser on their personal device. Plans can be selected from there. This year, Spirit plans to enhance the onboard offering with more free content, upgradeability, Google and Apple Pay, and multi-device plans that offer gate-to-gate coverage.
Spirit Airlines is offering two tiers of service with a browsing tier that starts at US$2.99 that can accommodate e-mail, chatting and social media. The streaming tier starts at US$5.99. The airline says the higher tier is 20 times faster to allow streaming television shows and movies. With dynamic pricing, costs can increase from the base price on longer flights.
The SES-17 satellite that provides connectivity to the aircraft has a downlink capacity of 400 MBS to the ThinKom Solutions antenna that is being installed on the Spirit fleet of A320s and A321s. Thales FlytLIVE supplies the connectivity through the Ka-band and the SES-17 satellite by Thales Alenia Space and Hughes aviation satellite network and technology.
Before this year’s APEX event, Spirit expects to complete the transition onto the SES-17 satellite for all its Wi-Fi-enabled aircraft. Now, a spokesman for the airline said Spirit is experiencing higher demand for Wi-Fi on its cross-country flight between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and some of its larger markets in the east.
