MWC 2018: Airbus, Delta, OneWeb, Sprint and Airtel Announce Seamless Air Alliance

At the Mobile World Congress, companies Airbus, Delta, OneWeb, Sprint, and Airtel announced the formation of the Seamless Air Alliance. By empowering operators to extend their services into cabins, the alliance will allow them to provide their customers with high speed, low latency connectivity from ground to air and back again via satellite technology.

The alliance, which aims to attract additional industry operators beyond the five initial members, will eliminate the immense costs and hurdles commonly associated with acquisition, installation, and operation of data access infrastructure. They're planning to do that by streamlining system integration and certification, providing open specifications for interoperability, increasing accessibility for passengers, and enabling simple and integrated billing.

“With the launch of our first production satellites set for later this year, we’re one step closer to bridging the global Digital Divide on land and in the air,“ said Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman of OneWeb. “We’re excited to create this seamless experience for our airline customers and their passengers,“ added Marc Fontaine, Airbus Digital Transformation Officer.