“We are planning to launch the services by the last quarter this year,” said Krittaphon. “Initially, 13 aircraft will be equipped to have the service, including the Airbus A330/343X and the upcoming Airbus A380, which we are launching in October. We are talking about six Airbus A380 and seven Airbus A330 planes being equipped with these services.”

Thai Airways has a fleet of roughly 90 aircraft. While the airline is busy equipping its first set of aircraft with this new service, it is already thinking ahead. Krittaphon added that an in-flight entertainment service could even see the light of day before the end of the year.  

   “In terms of live television, we are having discussions with a service provider on this. We see this as very much part of our second stage,” said Krittaphon. “This wouldn’t happen until at least next year at the earliest, but we are more looking at this for our long-haul fleet rather than our short-haul fleet. Our A380 and Boeing 777-300 ER are part of our long-haul fleet.”

The airline announced a deal with OnAir earlier this year that will have the airline’s brand new wide-body regional and long-haul inter-continental aircraft delivered between 2012 and 2017 be equipped with in-flight connectivity services. Explaining the reasons behind this deal, Krittaphon said the airline had been talking to OnAir for the last two years regarding in-flight connectivity for its future fleet.

   “We believe in-flight connectivity is the shape of things to come,” he said. “Previously, we had had the on-board telephone. We have had this landline phone for many years — since the mid ‘90s. But, with our future fleet coming up, we have decided to provide on-board connectivity to other passengers. We now want to provide connectivity services to all passengers.”

   Launching these still relatively new services is never easy, Krittaphon admitted, noting that there have been a number of key challenges for the airline to overcome, including licensing and regulatory hurdles. “We have to work very closely with the licensing authorities in other countries. We have to supply these authorities with a lot of information as we go along,” he said. “This is where we are learning our initial steps and where to go forward. This service is something new for everyone in this part of the world and is not available in neighboring countries. If you leave Thai airspace, there is no connectivity available over other parts of Indo-China, North Asia and the Middle East. There are key regulatory issues in the regions we fly over that we have to solve. We hope to have most of these issues resolved by the end of the year. Our service provider is also negotiating with each country as we go along.”

   One of the key decisions facing any airline in the future is whether to move to Ka-band solutions, especially as more dedicated high-throughput satellites are placed in orbit. Thai Airways is already an Inmarsat customer, so moving to Ka-band could be a logical step as the Ka-band Global Xpress service is launched in the next few years. Krittaphon, however, said those take-up decisions are still far beyond the horizon for the airline.

   “Solutions based on Ka-band are still under development,” he said. “We have selected SwiftBroadband as an interim service. When the technology comes online in the next three to five years, we may move to Ka-band. It is new technology and it costs in the tens of millions of dollars range, so we’ll wait a while until it’s more definite and stable.”

   Regardless of the bandwidth, Thai Airways views in-flight services as a long-term investment that requires buying the right technology at the right price. Doing so will allow airlines to set attractive prices for connectivity services, according to Krittaphon. “Initially, we have to do a lot of promotions and there will likely be an introductory offer in many areas. Pricing also will depend on the different types of passengers we have. It will take some time for this stream of revenue to stabilize. So far, the initial charge would be around $1.5 per megabyte.”