Runway Girl

As they ramp up aircraft production, Airbus and Boeing have, respectively, flagged separate concerns about the aircraft seating market, namely, the meager number of seatmakers following a period of industry consolidation, and the continued certification challenges for premium seats. In terms of seat manufacturers, “there is a small number of players,” which is creating a “tense business” in aircraft modifications, given that industry is seeing “very high demand,” Airbus head of services marketing Arnaud Demeusois said during a media briefing to discuss the OEM’s annual Global Services Forecast (GSF). “Yes, we’re ramping up in production, but we also see a very high demand for cabin upgrades because the passengers want to fly with differentiated experiences because airlines are competing against each other, also on the comfort, and it’s a quite tense market,” he continued. “I have to say right now, with good performance overall in terms of commercial [business], but I have to say in terms of delivery, yes, it is a challenge. And it remains a challenge in terms of seat supply.” Boeing, meanwhile, continues to see the impact of seat certification challenges on the delivery cadence of the 787. Its Dreamliner production rate is stable at eight aircraft per month. “While we have stability in our factory, delivery cadence has been uneven month to month due to the seat certification challenges we’ve discussed previously,” Boeing president and CEO Kelly Ortberg said during the U.S. airframer’s Q3 earnings conference call. runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/1…

Air Astana has been operating in stealth mode to bring SES’s multi-orbit, ESA-based inflight connectivity to its A321LR twinjets. Now, the carrier’s first fitted aircraft is offering high-speed Internet to passengers on an introductory complimentary basis. The connected A321LR (EI-KGB) took to the skies on October 29 for its first revenue flight with Internet access on the Almaty-Tashkent route. Counting 13 A321LRs in its fleet, Air Astana will roll out the new IFC hardware “in phases” throughout 2027. The airline utilized its own MRO facility for the first install, which in turn further enhanced its in-house engineering expertise, Air Astana CEO Ibrahim Canliel says. SES’s ESA-based multi-orbit IFC offering uses Gilat’s Stellar Blu ESA to talk to Eutelsat’s OneWeb Ku-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network and SES’s geostationary (GEO) satellites. OneWeb has received clearance to operate in Kazakhstan. Zhaslan Madiyev, who serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development for the Republic of Kazakhstan, notes that his agency “removed barriers and adapted legislation for non-geostationary satellite systems” to support the launch of LEO/GEO connectivity on Air Astana. “This has paved the way for the practical implementation of the technology.” runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/1…

JetBlue's new BlueFirst product will take to the skies on December 8, and be progressively rolled out. But a seat supply crunch means that the rollout is slated to take longer than JetBlue would like. While “the majority” of the fleet will be equipped with BlueFirst in 2027, installation of the 2-2-configured recliners across JetBlue’s A220s, A320s, and A321s is expected to be formally completed “later in 2028,” management confirmed today during a conference call to discuss Q3 earnings — including the carrier’s 21.1% year-over-year revenue growth to $2.8 billion. This somewhat protracted equipage timeline is due to the supply chain bottleneck in industry, particularly around integrated IFE/seats. While JetBlue has selected a customized version of Collins Aerospace’s highly popular off-the-shelf MiQ platform — with 13.3” Thales IFE screens and Bluetooth connectivity — “frankly, the issue right now is supply chain,” JetBlue president Marty St. George said candidly. “In fact, I was with Collins on Friday and had this exact conversation. Like, we would love to get these seats in faster, but unfortunately, as is the situation with so many products in the industry right now, supply chain is a critical path factor. But I would gladly take these faster, if we could.” BlueFirst is Part of JetBlue’s wider, multi-year JetForward transformation plan, and an important driver for the carrier’s future growth. “At run rate, we expect BlueFirst to deliver nearly five points of RASM improvement, with its revenue and margin contributions building through 2028 and beyond,” JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty said on today’s call. Indeed, since BlueFirst inventory went on sale twelve days ago, JetBlue has fielded strong take up for the product, which will fly on select Fort Lauderdale-New York LaGuardia services after the initial debut from Boston. runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/1…

Safran has announced plans to divest its Safran Cabin unit, which provides overhead bins, galleys, lavatories, water and waste management solutions, and other aircraft cabin interiors to the civil aviation market. Against a backdrop that saw Safran Cabin achieve “notable growth” in the third quarter in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, “[W]e launched the process to divest our Cabin business a few weeks ago,” Safran Group CEO Pascal Bantegnie revealed during the firm’s Q3 earnings conference call. “For your reference, Cabin now generates around EUR 2 billion in revenue per year and is delivering positive EBIT and free cash flow,” he said. The decision is not surprising. Since acquiring Zodiac Aerospace in 2018, the French aerospace giant has been studying – and indeed executing on – the divestiture of non-core interiors activities. Eight months ago, Safran sold its inflight entertainment business, Safran Passenger Innovations, to Los Angeles-based private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management. The business was renamed RAVE Aerospace. In July, Safran sold its shares of EZAir, its interiors joint venture with Embraer, to the Brazilian airframer. Aircraft seats remain core to Safran’s business, however, with Bantegnie pointing to Q3 growth in both services and business class original equipment, “boosted by higher volumes and improved pricing.” “The market for seats,” he said, “still exceeds available supply, which puts us in a strong position to negotiate favorable terms.” runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/1…

As Telesat starts deploying physical infrastructure for its Lightspeed LEO satellite network, Airbus reveals it is fielding interest for its linefit, supplier-furnished HBCplus flex inflight connectivity solution which can support geostationary satcom and Lightspeed LEO. Last month, Telesat commissioned its first European gateway for Lightspeed in the French community of Bercenay-en-Othe. The Canadian satellite operator in December will launch two pathfinder satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, followed by a cadence of satellite launches in 2027 to offer global coverage, including over the poles, in Q1 2028. “The HBCplus flex antenna — our current antenna offer — is the first GEO/LEO integrated solution and is currently generating interest among customers,” Airbus told Runway Girl Network after management highlighted how GEO and LEO connectivity are complementary during a media briefing to discuss the airframer’s Global Services Forecast (GCF). That’s good news for Hughes Network Systems, a managed service provider in the Ka-band under the HBCplus program, as well as TCI Aircraft Interiors, which has inked an MoU with Airbus to become an MSP. Each firm has a roadmap for providing access to Lightspeed LEO as part of their multi-orbit service offerings (and both are partners in the aftermarket.) SES is also an MSP on the HBCplus program. Today, it powers IFC for HBCplus customers via Open Orbits, its hybrid Ka-band network which comprises GEO and O3b mPOWER Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. “The capabilities recorded are very good, with a bandwidth of around 300 Mbps, making it a top-ranking solution among the antennas available on the market today,” Airbus says of the current GEO/MEO-powered IFC service now flying. But given that the same HBCplus flex terminal can facilitate Lightspeed LEO when the service comes online, and indeed can ably support the gigabit-per-second link speeds that Lightspeed will enable, some industry observers wonder whether SES will in time ink a Lightspeed capacity deal with Telesat. runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/1…