Viasat and CJI's Business Aviation Connectivity Survey 2024

That’s according to the results of Viasat’s 2024 business aviation survey, conducted in partnership with Corporate Jet Investor (CJI) magazine. This year’s respondents once again included a diverse variety of professionals from across the industry, such as owners, charter operators, corporates, brokers and advisers, who collectively operate the full spectrum of business aviation aircraft, from small to large jets.

 

“Business aviation in-flight connectivity has always been a fast-changing market and if you look at the insights from our annual survey with CJI over the past few years, it’s clear that the pace of change has accelerated like never before,” comments Kai Tang, Viasat’s Head of Business Aviation. “From previous results, we know connectivity has evolved from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’ in business aviation. What’s clear from this year’s research is that expectations continue to rise, fuelled by technological advances and the growing importance of ever-present connectivity. There’s also greater maturity in the breadth and depth of criteria operators now use to assess connectivity services.”

When asked to rank the most important characteristics of in-flight connectivity, ‘reliability’ maintained its crown as the top answer, selected by 59% of respondents.  This was followed by coverage and quality of experience (both scoring 41%), value for money (36%) and consistency (33%), making it clear that business aviation passengers want connectivity that just works, whenever and wherever they fly. The responses are aligned with overall trends since the 2020 pandemic. An increasingly hybrid workforce has become used to working productively wherever they find themselves – so why should a flight be any different?

 

Interestingly, speed - which once ranked highly, but has steadily dropped down the list of importance over the years – slid even further in the 2024 results. Now ranked in sixth position (28%), it’s only higher than security (26%), low maintenance (20%) and, in last place, low latency (10%).

 

These insights are also reflected in respondents’ greatest frustrations. Beyond cost, their chief pain points are inconsistency, unreliability and coverage limitations.

 

“Business aviation operators are a lot savvier now. When selecting a connectivity service, they have become focused on the overall experience, including factors such as reliability, consistency, seamless availability, and of course, white glove customer service. These are key characteristics of Viasat solutions, in collaboration with our partners, built over decades of proven innovation and experience in business aviation,” adds Tang.

 

“Of course, there’s still a lot of noise in the connectivity market about theoretical top speeds and latency, especially from newer entrants. In reality, this is only one factor in the overall experience, and actually one of the least important ones. Beyond a certain bandwidth threshold, higher numbers have little impact on actual passenger experience. Certainly much less than gaps in service or unreliable hardware.”

The survey also delved into the various in-flight activities conducted by business aviation principals using connectivity. In the past, simply being able to send emails and messages or make voice calls from the skies was considered something of a novelty. While these remain important today, the use cases have become far more varied, advanced and reliant on high-performance connectivity. Half of our respondents told us that connectivity should allow them to do anything and everything they can do on the ground.

More specifically, a growing number use their connectivity to conduct video conference calls (27%), use cloud-based business apps such as Microsoft 365 or Slack (21%), and to access cloud-based files from the likes of OneDrive, SharePoint and Google Drive (16%). We even saw that 6% trusted their connection to carry out financial trades in the air — a time-sensitive task with serious repercussions if the onboard wi-fi was to drop out halfway through. Interestingly, 1% used connectivity for generative AI. While this may still seem a low figure, the mere thought of being able to carry out data hungry tasks like this a few years ago would have seemed completely unrealistic.

 

Although the primary use of connectivity appears to centre on business activities, respondents also highlighted its importance for leisure activities, such as streaming HD videos and live TV during a flight, selected by 15% and 12%, respectively.

We’ve seen what business aviation customers expect to achieve in-flight, and what they view as the most important factors for connectivity. But what do they look for in a connectivity partner? 45% of respondents cite relevant business aviation experience as crucial. The connectivity industry is constantly evolving and growing, but those with a proven track record retain a significant advantage over newer entrants to the market.

 

Innovation for innovation’s sake is simply not a priority for most respondents - our survey found that experience, responsiveness, reputation and trust within the business aviation industry are what really counts. And with more than 35 years in business aviation, and over 5,000 business jets flying with our solutions onboard, that bodes well for Viasat. Perhaps it’s why we’re known as Business Aviation’s Principal Partner.

 

“It’s critical for connectivity providers to understand what matters most to their business aviation customers and ensure their business models and services are adapting in response to shifting market expectations,” concludes Tang.

 

“When we asked respondents about important criteria for connectivity service plans, cost and speed ranked as highly as expected. But what is really interesting is how important other aspects, such as access to unlimited data, guaranteed service experience and customer support have become. This reflects a more established and mature market, where cost and speed are beginning to become hygiene factors rather than differentiators. I expect this trend towards the value of overall service experience to continue well into the future.”