Inmarsat, a world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, is celebrating the commercial service introduction of its newest and most advanced satellite to date.
GX5 is now delivering unprecedented capacity to Europe and the Middle East as part of the industry-leading Global Xpress (GX) network, which powers the GX Aviation and Jet ConneX (JX) inflight wi-fi services.
Conceived, designed and procured principally to meet the needs of airline and business aviation customers, GX5 delivers approximately twice the capacity of the entire existing GX satellite fleet (GX1-GX4) combined. Together with a significantly expanded ground station network and enhanced cloud-based processing, the powerful satellite is essential to support rapidly growing demand for aviation connectivity in Europe and the Middle East.
GX Aviation customers set to benefit from the regional capacity boost include leading airlines such as Qatar Airways, Eurowings, Lufthansa, Air France, SAS and Singapore Airlines, alongside more than 800 business jets enabled with JX.
Philip Balaam, president of Inmarsat Aviation, said, “GX Aviation and Jet ConneX are firmly established as the world’s leading inflight connectivity solutions and we have now embarked on a major, fully-funded development programme to ensure they remain at the very forefront of this industry.
“We are delighted to take the next step in this ambitious roadmap with GX5’s entry into commercial service. This is our most powerful satellite to date, delivering more capacity over Europe and the Middle East than the four existing GX satellites combined. In addition to transforming the quality of aviation connectivity today, it will ensure that our customers remain at the cutting-edge of technology innovation as their needs evolve and air traffic recovers in 2021 and beyond.”
