Atlas Air Service and Gogo Business Aviation are jointly developing EASA supplemental type certificates to install the Gogo Galileo HDX communications antenna on both the Cessna CitationJet and Embraer Phenom 300. Announcing the plans on Monday, the companies said the STCs will be the first for the broadband system in Europe.
Initially, Germany-based Atlas Air Service is focusing its efforts on completing the STC for the CitationJet/CJ series. The first installation is expected to be made this summer on a CJ1+.
The Phenom 300 STC is being developed in parallel, with the expectation that various international air safety regulators will validate the EASA approvals. According to Gogo, the STCs will apply to more than 2,600 aircraft in operation worldwide today, including some 1,850 Citations and 750 Phenom 300s.
Atlas Air Service is a maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) specialist for business aircraft with headquarters in Bremen and other bases in Augsburg and Altenrhein in Switzerland. It provides support for operators of aircraft manufactured by Embraer, Textron Aviation (Cessna and Beechcraft), Gulfstream, Daher, Pilatus, and Cirrus.
Gogo’s Galileo system will operate on the Eutelsat OneWeb enterprise-grade low-earth-orbit satellite network, which is fully deployed. Following ground tests and verification work now being conducted, the U.S. manufacturer intends to flight test the prototype HDX terminal in the next few months.
“For the first time ever, a true global broadband service will be available to thousands of aircraft operators in Europe and around the world,” said Radu Grigore, deputy director of MRO commercial for Atlas Air Service. “For many years our customers have been asking for a small and affordable broadband solution for their aircraft. We wanted to be among the first to partner with Gogo to develop these STCs and bring true broadband inflight WiFi for every segment of business aviation.”
At the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition in May, Gogo plans to demonstrate the Galileo HDX system onboard a CJ1+. It will be on the static display during the trade show in Geneva.
At the end of 2023, Gogo reported that 7,205 business aircraft are now flying with its broadband systems onboard, including 3,976 using the Gogo Avance L5 or L3 units. There are also 4,341 aircraft fitted with the company’s narrowband technology.