Interview with Emirates' Patrick Brannelly: The future is free
This is a special feature from PAX Tech's November 2024 FTE Singapore issue
In May 2023, Emirates reported that 10 percent of its passengers are using complimentary onboard Wi-Fi. In an interview with PAX Tech at APEX Global EXPO in Long Beach, California, Patrick Brannelly, SVP IFE & Connectivity, Emirates, highlighted that 76 percent of inflight Wi-Fi sessions are free.
“Free is the future and it is what people expect,” he explains.
Quick connections
Brannelly says it is no surprise that more passengers are connecting to inflight Wi-Fi on Emirates’ flights from the Americas versus Europe and Africa because they are longer flights. But while there is a correlation between length of flight and the percentage of connected passengers, he says the airline has seen the biggest increase in connected passengers on short-haul flights.
“It's still low, but in terms of percentage, it has grown more than anything,” Brannelly tells PAX Tech. “I think this will be the future when everybody just naturally connects seamlessly and stays connected.”
Emirates is pushing for this level of frictionless connectivity where passengers can be automatically logged onto the Wi-Fi upon boarding the aircraft. Brannelly likens it to the experience of walking into a shopping mall or hotel where the device remembers the network. He notes that while passenger loyalty is a complicated subject, it is certain that if an airline does not offer reliable, quality service, they will see passenger loyalty diminish.
Future unknown
When it comes to imagining the future of the connected aircraft, Brannelly says it is impossible to accurately predict in such a rapidly evolving landscape.
“In 10 years, it could be that people are fed up with being connected all the time and you see a decline,” Brannelly muses. “We're still in the early ages of people walking around fully connected and behaviours are changing. I see more people leaving their phones out of meetings now or not checking their phone as often as they did probably two years ago. I'm not saying that's a trend, but you can't really tell what the trend will be.”
While he says being unable to predict trends could lead to risk for airlines investing hundreds of millions of dollars into IFC, he assures it is just as big of a risk not to spend the money and have the technology available to passengers.
As for the future of connectivity in the aviation industry, Brannelly says he expects to see a combination of LEO and GEO satellite options.
“LEO satellites have many benefits, GEO satellites have many benefits, and to say the future is going to be purely LEO or purely GEO is probably too simplistic,” he says. “I think that the future will be antennas that work with both and can switch between the two and geographically some areas will be covered only by GEO and others by LEO.”
Emirates has long been a leader in connectivity in the aviation industry, putting phones on aircraft back in the early 90s.
“Back in 1995, we had a wall-mounted cell phone on every plane,” Brannelly recalls. “We were the first to install systems that allowed mobile phones to work onboard in 2008, and we installed Wi-Fi connectivity across the fleet very early on, which, if you're the first one to go, you end up having the oldest infrastructure in an industry that evolves very quickly. But we are now embarking on a total retrofit of our fleet, including connectivity to bring that up to the best in class again.”
