In early February, Tenzing received $10 million from Taikoo Aviation Technologies and joined forces with Hughes Global Services, Inc. to offer global inflight broadband communication services.
In addition to gaining access to money and broadband infrastructure, The Seattle-based company is also attracting additional airline partners. Its latest airline partner is Virgin Atlantic.
So far Tenzing has inked deals with Air Canada, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. Virgin Atlantic marks the first European carrier to get on Tenzing’s fast track to ‘inflight netertainment’.
And there is another first.
“Virgin Atlantic has been innovative in so many areas of passenger entertainment and comfort that it seems only natural that they would be the first airline to deploy our Internet and email solution for all passengers regardless of their class of travel,” says Tenzing President and COO Alan Pellegrini.
The new service will be integrated into Virgin Atlantic’s inflight entertainment system to allow passengers to send and receive email with their laptop or send personal notes via their seat back video screen.
Virgin Atlantic plans on offering Tenzing’s service not just on its fleet of Boeing 747-400 and 747-200 aircraft, but also on its Airbus 340-300 aircraft. Tenzing will also work with Virgin Atlantic during the production line stage of Virgin Atlantic’s new Airbus 340-600 aircraft.