Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Inmarsat Offers Free Global Airline Tracking Service

Flight MH370 pathInmarsat, the British firm whose satellites have helped a lot in tracking the final route of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, will be offering a free global tracking service to passenger planes. The offer comes more than two months after the said flight went missing and was believed to have crashed in southern Indian Ocean. The plane has not yet been found, along with its 239 passengers; most of them were Chinese.

“In the wake of the loss of MH370, we believe this is simply the right thing to do. Because of the universal nature of existing Inmarsat aviation services, our proposals can be implemented right away on all ocean-going commercial aircraft using equipment that is already installed,” Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce said on the company press release, released this Monday.

“Furthermore, our leading aviation safety partners are fully supportive of expanded use of the ADS-C Service through the Inmarsat network. This offer responsibly, quickly and at little or no cost to the industry, addresses in part the problem brought to light by the recent tragic events around MH370,” Pearce added, confirming that the offer has already been made to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The free global airline tracking service is offered to all 11,000 commercial passenger planes, all of which have already an Inmarsat satellite connection. The announcement was made one day ahead of the company’s meeting with ICAO in Montreal, where new airline safety measures are expected to be discussed. Analysts say said that the cost of the proposed service is around $3 million annually. But because Inmarsat will shoulder the expenses, it could attract airline companies to avail their premium services.

Inmarsat, which started in 1979 pioneering mobile satellite communications, is also offering an enhanced position facility that aims to report the position of an airplane in a more precise manner. This will allow airplanes to fly closer together with less danger, resulting to more aircraft to fit in a crowded airspace. In addition, the company is offering a “black box in the cloud” service, wherein real-time flight data will be stored remotely, and will immediately be triggered once an unapproved course deviation occurs. This will help investigators and searchers to easily locate a missing aircraft.

Reply