What a year it’s been for the In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) market. The extent of SpaceX’s reach across both commercial and business aviation is now there for all to see and it’s clear we’re witnessing a changing of the guard in terms of the largest IFC service providers. Preference amongst airlines has shifted to low latency, free, easy to install and… multiple antennas per aircraft? We’re still not sure when the last one became a thing engineering teams could accept, but that’s the power of brand appeal!
You might be thinking the pace of disruption will soon slow down but 2026 just walked in and said, “Hold my beer”. In this write-up, analysts from Valour Consultancy’s aviation team have come together to share the key IFC-related themes they expect to shape the next 12 months.
Commercial Aviation
Big Announcements Still to Come
There’s been a flurry of IFC announcements either side of the Dubai Air Show, which have been substantial in terms of size and scale. We’re expecting no let-up in the momentum from here with several notable carriers on our watchlist for 2026. Singapore Airlines, for example, is projected to formalise its selection of Starlink, following in the footsteps of the Hanjin Group of airlines (Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jin Air, Air Busan and Air Seoul), which signed up last week. In the extremely competitive North America market, American Airlines is yet to make a decision on its mainline fleet, even as SES’s multi-orbit service is rolled out across its regional aircraft. Similarly, the new year will mark three years since Southwest Airlines activated the first tranche of IFEC upgrades across its fleet, with both Viasat and Anuvu. Both vendors have invested heavily into supporting Southwest, but this remains one of the biggest fleets yet to transition to LEO or multi-orbit and will undoubtedly be high on the target list for the usual suspects. So it sits on our list.
Rubber Meets the Road for Starlink
With so many aircraft now under contract and installations ramping up quickly, the new year will not only see Starlink’s network put through its paces, but aftersales support will come under the microscope too. The company has seemingly preferred to maintain a centralised support function out of the US rather than deploy a team of localised account managers and engineering support as other IFEC service providers have tended to do. This reflects SpaceX’s approach in other verticals but also its attitude toward hardware (rip and replace) and reporting (heavily automated). This is not to say there’ll be any shortage of love shown by SpaceX to airline customers. It’s just operators are known to love feeling loved and with so many aircraft coming online at once, teething issues are bound to appear as support requests ramp up and airlines scramble to be top of the priority list.
Amazon LEO Enters the Market
Having recently dropped its Project Kuiper code name, Amazon is shifting through the gears under the revamped Amazon LEO brand as it works toward fulfilling a commitment made to the FCC to have half of the planned Ka-band constellation in orbit by mid-2026. We’re not expecting to see a commercial aircraft active on Amazon LEO next year, but we do expect to get a flavour for its performance via other verticals. If Starlink’s adoption curve is anything to go by, this will be the year Amazon makes its case to any carriers who have been willing to watch and wait. Readers seeking more detailed insight will be able to access more information in Valour Consultancy’s new report, “Amazon Leo: Aviation Deep Dive”.
Space Race Gives Carriers Alternatives
In an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape, sovereignty over satellite assets is taking on greater importance. Three Chinese LEO networks are currently in development, with “Thousand Sails” appearing the most likely to influence the IFC market. France and the UK have recently committed additional funding to Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation, and Eutelsat also plays a central role in the EU’s IRIS² programme. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia’s PIF-backed Neo Space Group is also winning carriers with access to multi-orbit capacity via SES open orbits.
Political agendas are expected to play an increased role in the outcome of IFC-led RFPs in the years ahead. It’s hard to believe, given how the IFC market is trending today, but there are airlines which will need to seek alternatives to Starlink, with a preference toward sovereign assets that permit greater control. Those options above are expected to be amongst the beneficiaries.
Business Aviation
Even More Consolidation
The hypothesis is that LuxStream will soon be withdrawn from the market and no longer supported, with competing GEO solution, FlexExec, kept alive as a backup option on large-cabin aircraft, primarily as a complement to OneWeb LEO capacity within a fully redundant multi-orbit package. Longer term, a similar pattern is expected for Viasat: a gradual shift away from standalone JetXP deployments, with multi-orbit Ka-band taking centre stage and Telesat operating quietly in the background as a capacity supplier once Lightspeed launches.
Starlink Line-Fit Announcements
Starlink is also blazing a trail in BizAv, having just announced a huge deal with NetJets to fit its LEO solution on some 600 business jets. Notably, this will see Gogo’s ATG solutions de-installed and the previously announced agreement to upgrade to 5G and Galileo on those aircraft seems to now be off the table. Movement can be expected on the line-fit side in 2026 too, with Gulfstream viewed as the most likely OEM to move first. Because hardware has yet to catch up with the consolidation seen on the network and service-provider side, aircraft will increasingly carry several separate systems. Large-cabin aircraft could begin leaving the factory equipped with both an LEO ESA and a GEO-based tail-mount antenna for redundancy – a trend that will heighten demand for seamless management tools to optimise the onboard experience.
L-Band Becomes Almost Obsolete for Cabin Connectivity
Despite much initial fanfare and what looked to be a seamless install process, Viasat’s SwiftJet service is now not expected to launch. As a result, L-band will decline more sharply as a primary cabin connectivity layer in BizAv now that LEO is maturing. Even in the turboprop and very-light-jet categories, Starlink’s Mini solution is likely to continue eroding the remaining L-band installed base.
Valour Consultancy’s IFEC Expertise
Valour Consultancy is a multi-award-winning provider of high-quality market intelligence and consultancy services. Our origins are in generating insights around passenger-led solutions, most notably in-flight connectivity (IFC) and in-flight entertainment (IFE), but we now support clients through a body of work spanning the entire fuselage.
This year, we have published reports on “The Market for IFC in Business Aviation” and “Starlink Aviation”, alongside our “Quarterly IFEC Market Tracker” which updates stakeholders on installation activity, the addressable market, new wins, and key trends.
Our flagship commercial aviation report on “The Future of In-Flight Connectivity” will be published this month, just ahead of our second update on “The Future of Flat Panel Antennas” in January. If you would like to learn more about our IFEC reporting and consultancy services, please contact us here.
