Viasat, Türksat, and SKYFive Arabia announced on Apr. 14 a planned collaboration to offer seamless roaming services aimed at advancing in-flight connectivity across Türkiye, Europe, and the Middle East-Africa region.
The initiative is intended to provide commercial airlines, private aviation operators, and other aviation customers with continuous cross-border internet access while flying over these areas. The collaboration aims to use a unified S-band spectrum across the three networks—SKYFive’s air-to-ground (A2G) network, Viasat’s European Aviation Network (EAN), and Türksat’s network in Türkiye—to make roaming easier for users.
Türksat is developing a nationwide A2G network within Türkiye that will deliver low-latency, high-capacity broadband connectivity for aircraft operating in Turkish airspace. This service will complement satellite-based solutions by improving continuity as planes move between different regional coverage zones. By joining an existing partnership between Viasat and SKYFive Arabia, Türksat will act as a bridge connecting investments from both companies.
Türkiye’s air travel market serves tens of millions of passengers annually due to strong tourism demand and business travel through major hubs like Istanbul Airport. The parties involved expect their new framework to improve interoperability among adjacent networks while making efficient use of infrastructure already in place. They also hope it will help meet evolving passenger expectations for high-speed internet during flights.
Shameem Hashmi, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Market Expansion at Viasat said: “Viasat recognizes the strong mutual value of collaborating on a joint roaming initiative to enable a seamless connectivity experience for our EAN airline customers operating over Türkiye and into the Middle East and Africa. We look forward to working closely with Türksat and SKYFive Arabia to extend the benefits of this collaboration and further enhance the connectivity experience for our customers.”
Selman Demirel, Vice President at Türksat said: “Türksat is committed to supporting advanced and commercially practical connectivity solutions for the aviation sector. We believe this collaboration can help create a stronger framework for cross-border service continuity and support the evolving connectivity needs of commercial airlines, private aviation operators, and other aviation customers flying between Türkiye, Middle East and Europe.”
Mohamed K. Abdelrehim, CEO of SKYFive Arabia & SCIT Group said: “At SKYFive Arabia, we see roaming capability as an important enabler of broader adoption of air-to-ground in-flight connectivity. Our collaboration with Türksat reflects a shared ambition to support a more seamless, scalable, and commercially attractive connectivity proposition for aviation customers operating across Türkiye, Middle East and the wider European market.”
The companies noted that their plans are subject to contractual agreements as well as technical or regulatory requirements.
