The SES ESA antenna on an Avianca plane. Photo: SES

Latin American airline group Abra Group has selected SES’s in-flight connectivity (IFC) service to be rolled out on more than 100 aircraft, SES announced Monday. 

Colombian airline Avianca, part of Abra Group, now has 10 Airbus A320s in service equipped with SES’s new electronically steered array (ESA) antenna. This is the Sidewinder aero terminal by Stellar Blu Solutions, now part of Gilat, post-acquisition. 

The service will be retrofitted to more than 100 Abra Group aircraft —Airbus and Boeing planes, “in the coming years,” SES said. This includes Abra Group airlines Avianca, Brazilian airline GOL, and Spanish charter company Wamos Air. 

The ESA antenna connects to both SES’s Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellites and OneWeb Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites from partner Eutelsat. 

“At Abra Group, we continue to bring next-generation solutions onboard to make connectivity more accessible and offer more options to our passengers,” said Francisco Raddatz, chief procurement officer of Abra Group.