Premium on Safety - Issue 38, 2020 - 4

Cabin Connectivity

TECH SPOT

Keeping the principals connected and working
BY FRANK JACKMAN

Whether on the ground or in the air, connectivity in its various
forms is critical. Corporate executives and others who use business
aviation as a tool expect to be able to work just as effectively from
the back of an aircraft as they can from an office. But in striving to
meet those demands, it's important that solution providers keep
flight crew workload in mind.
"The big difference between business aviation and commercial
aviation is the consistency required for business aviation users, and
to make sure that whenever they're in flight they have a consistent

"What we do is really look to design something
that is going to be stable, that is going to be
intuitive and basically always up and running."
experience and are enabled to do whatever they want to as if
they were on the ground," said Chris Moore, president of Business
Aviation at Satcom Direct.
"A lot of these aircraft are really flying offices," said Dave Glenn,
senior vice president of Customer Operations at Gogo. "There
are deals that are done and conference calls that need to be had
and the principal expects that they're going to jump on and that
it is going to work."
Maintaining that connectivity-video conferencing, emails, voice
calls, access to corporate networks, and various apps and streaming
services-and meeting those expectations requires a mix of elements,
including products that automatically relay status and issues with
support systems, applications that allow personnel to manage the
aircraft's systems, field service engineers, customer support and
technical staffs, strategically positioned line replaceable units (LRU),
and onboard troubleshooting by flight and cabin crew.

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Satcom Direct, like Gogo, consistently ranks at or near the top of
the annual Aviation International News product support survey. It
has field service engineers positioned around the globe in order
to get to an aircraft anywhere in the world within four hours. Of
course, Moore would prefer to resolve issues before an aircraft visit
is required and he stressed the proactive and predictive nature of
Satcom Direct's support.
The company offers applications for crew and operations personnel
to manage the aircraft "so there is consistent experience that meets
their expectations and the crew always stays ahead of the aircraft
and ahead of the passenger," he said. A smartphone app enables
the crew to do a test as they power up the aircraft. Any issues are
automatically routed to the company's support center "and quite
often before the crew knows there's an issue our team has already
fixed that issue or configuration problem and then notifies the
crew of what has transpired." Moore said Satcom Direct's entire
infrastructure is set up so aircraft never get grounded because of a
communications issue.
"What I tell people is that the best way to fix something is to not
have it broken," said Gogo's Glenn. "What we do is really look
to design something that is going to be stable, that is going to
be intuitive and basically always up and running." Gogo has field
service engineers and LRUs positioned strategically near centers
of business aviation activity. The company can troubleshoot
and resolve 98 percent of issues remotely through its support
organization, "but there are times when you have to touch LRUs
and that is where the engineers come into play," he said.
Both companies offer training for crews. For example, Satcom
Direct offers aeroIT, which it describes as an information technology
certification for the configuration and troubleshooting of networks
and Satcom systems aboard an aircraft. The training course is
approved for eight Federal Aviation Administration Inspection
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