Flight & Fight

The space race to own sky-high internet

Inflight internet connectivity is big money for the aerospace industry. Just to enter the game, building and lofting a satellite costs a cool half a billion US dollars. Meanwhile, the London School of Economics estimates that annual airline industry efficiency savings from widespread adoption of inflight Internet will reach around US$15 billion a year by 2035.

Roughly a third of these benefits will come from the flightdeck. Global fuel savings of two to three per cent will also notch up the billions.