Airbus yesterday announced the successful demonstration of its new standard high-bandwidth connectivity (HBC) architecture. The flight test was performed on an A330 using Zodiac Inflight Innovations’ equipment and Inmarsat’s Global Xpress Ka-Band satellite constellation.

This is the first platform to be flight-tested with the HBC platform, giving airlines the flexibility to linefit and retrofit their aircraft with Ka-Band, Ku-Band and L-Band connectivity from Zodiac Inflight Innovations, Panasonic, Thales and Rockwell Collins, independently of their choice of in-flight entertainment supplier.

Rollout of the HBC platform is expected to begin mid-2017, and will eventually be available across other Airbus aircraft families, including the A320 and the A380. Most recently, Finnair and Iberia opted for Airbus’ HBC retrofit solution on their single-aisle and wide-body fleets.

“The A350 was designed for [connectivity].” – Ingo Wuggetzer, Airbus

The news complements Airbus’ keynote on “the digital native aircraft,” during Education Day yesterday, and the “connected aircraft” direction the company hopes to take, with its other aircraft families in the near future.

“The A350 was designed for [connectivity],” said Ingo Wuggetzer, vice-president, Cabin Marketing, on the airframer’s next-generation aircraft. “It’s not a retrofit of some system; it’s integrated, market-developed architecture,” he said. Speaking of the possibilities of realizing that vision with the availability of HBC architecture, he added, “We work with partners to fulfill that demand.”