Hughes shares progress on HBCplus program and Delta Fusion deployment
Reza Rasoulian, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Aviation Business Unit at Hughes, at APEX Global EXPO 2025
Airlines are demanding flexible business models and consistent connectivity as passenger expectations for inflight Wi-Fi continue to grow. Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes) is addressing this need as part of Airbus’s HBCplus inflight connectivity ecosystem, where it serves as an official Managed Service Provider (MSP). The Hughes HBCplus solution offers scalability, reliability and a roadmap for polar route coverage.
At APEX Global EXPO 2025, PAX Tech spoke with Reza Rasoulian, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Aviation Business Unit at Hughes, to hear the latest developments.
“We work closely with Airbus on opportunities,” he says. “We are excited because I think there is opportunity out there for airlines that want high-speed connectivity direct from the factory. We have a lot of great prospects as we look to expand our portfolio and our reach to help airlines.”
Hughes also received AS9100 certification earlier this year, which Rasoulian says is a testament to the company’s forward-looking approach.
“We made the decision several years ago to invest and get ready for the AS9100 process,” he explains. “This process helped us streamline and create even better solutions for aviation and airline customers. And really, we are leveraging the AS9100 as a further stepping stone into our aviation, aerospace discipline.”
At APEX Global EXPO, Rasoulian continued to champion the message, “Connectivity does not need to be bad. It is possible to have fantastic connectivity at scale.”
He says the deployment of Hughes’ Fusion Simultaneous Multi-Orbit In-Flight Connectivity Solution on select A350 and A321neos and existing 717 aircraft for Delta Air Lines is now underway.
“That is going very well,” he reveals, with the GEO-LEO simultaneous solution set to debut later this year. “We have been in aviation for more than a decade, close to 15 years. Going direct to the airline community has really helped us help [airlines and passengers] even more.”
As for what the future of inflight connectivity looks like, Rasoulian says the priority should be, “Access to the applications, whether they are cloud-based or streaming, at any time during the flight from gate to gate.”
Next, he prioritizes uninterrupted capacity and throughput of Wi-Fi to the passengers continuously, for the whole flight.
“It is not just about the satellite capacity, it is also about the infrastructure and the management system on board. We have spent a lot of energy on the optimization of each and every piece that creates this experience,” he says.
Rasoulian cites this reliability, consistency and accessibility as the key pillars that enable the delivery of seamless gate-to-gate coverage for the passenger.
“And it is here, it is flying today,” he adds. “Fusion will be flying in a couple of months. There is a lot of talk about future constellations and future solutions, but our roadmap starts today and evolves into the future.”
