Connected Aircraft is adding a new page to customer experience

The customer journey is being redefined in the aviation industry. Customers will be connected with the rest of the world, even inflight. This is something that business people have always wanted - to stay connected with their business 24X7. Inmarsat’s annual Inflight Connectivity Survey has found that 83% of passengers would choose an airline that offers inflight connectivity. With the number of passengers due to double from 3.8 billion to 7.2 billion by 2035 and huge demand for onboard Wi-Fi rising every year, bringing inflight connectivity to aircrafts is not only a huge opportunity for airlines but a critical business decision.

The findings make three things clear:

Inflight Wi-Fi is going to be a mandatory service
High quality inflight Wi-Fi will drive airlines’ ticket sales
When travelling with children, inflight Wi-Fi will be a life-saver

This insight brings a huge opportunity for airlines and fleet operators. They can not only provide internet connectivity to their customers, but also use it to provide better and personalized customer experience.

According to Intelsat, two-thirds of airlines are expected to operate connected aircraft by 2019. There will be more secure and economical connectivity between the aircraft and internet in the future and it will be empowered by Edge (fog) computing architecture in the aircraft. This will empower the airlines to leverage the full power of cloud computing which enables access to unlimited content on the internet, and the full power of big data/analytics. Advancement in edge computing and a combination of Internet of Things (IoT), AI and Augmented Reality (AR) will help in delivering personalized content and service to customers onboard.

Currently, inflight services are very primitive and flight crews have been carrying out the services in the same manner for years. This is going to change dramatically.

Safety announcements and enforcements: Aircraft attendants will no longer have to inspect seats, tray tables and seatbelts. Seats with sensors will provide information to the crew and passengers on tab devices and on the screen (in front)/phone respectively.
Serving food and beverages: Passengers will be able to order directly over apps, with specific instructions if any.
Responding to ad-hoc requests from passengers: Flight attendants will know the exact requirements of passengers and will not need to make an extra round to figure out the need.

Connected Aircraft is adding a new page to customer experience

4. Selling normal/duty free products: Credit/debit card could be verified in real-time thus minimizing the revenue lost due to fraud and could potentially equate to around $90m in recoverable onboard duty-free sales on an annual basis.

Hyper-personalized experience along with a partner eco system will help the airline tap into a new source of revenue. Passengers will experience a shift in services around the following activities:

1Following safety instructions provided by the flight attendants: Passengers will be greeted onscreen and will be asked to comply with safety instructions, if there is any non-compliance.
Enjoying inflight entertainment: Passengers will be able to log in to their preferred apps/websites like Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Custom tailored advertising: Partners of the airlines company can send out tailored messages to the passenger inflight, based on the data collected by the airlines company and the user persona created.
Requesting flight attendants for services: Calling the attendant and then giving service requests will not be the process anymore. Passengers will be able to place their requests through the app/on the screen in front of them. On the other hand, the crew will have prior information on how much sugar/substitute, for example, has to be added.
Preparing for connecting flights if any: The screen in front will provide information (like gate number, directions, status) about the connecting flight.

Connected Aircraft - the way ahead

Connectivity within the cabin of an aircraft uses a combination of Wi-Fi, BLE, and wired Ethernet. Aircrafts are connected to the internet using Iridium or SATCOM. With new technological developments, this is going to change. Direct air-to-ground communication (DA2GC) to connect the aircraft with the ground cellular network will be revolutionized with the 5G network. A huge amount of data will be generated by connected fleet, estimated to reach 98 billion gigabytes annually by 2026, and processing such data will require that airlines invest in better and high-throughput satellites. However, with so much data and so many connected devices, the issue of cybersecurity will have to be addressed from multiple stands and will require substantial investments. These investments will secure bigger returns in the future. As per LSE’s projection, airlines could earn as much as $30 billion in revenue per year from their inflight connectivity offering to passengers, by 2035.

About the Author

Dr. Sanjoy Paul is an innovator and has 88 granted US patents. He is the author of 2 high-tech books and 200+ publications. He is the Vice President and Global Digital Head, Manufacturing BU in Wipro and has a key role in driving profitable growth for clients via business process transformation, leveraging innovative digital technologies such as Industrial IoT (IIOT), Voice conversations, Cloud, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. Sanjoy has over 25 years of industry experience. Before joining Wipro, Sanjoy worked with Accenture where he led the Digital Go to Market for Chemicals, Natural Resources and Energy industries in North America. Sanjoy holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from IIT Kharagpur, an M.S and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MBA from the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of IEEE and IET.

You can reach out to him at paul.sanjoy@wipro.com or connect with him over LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjoypaul

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