Brazilians and international visitors ready to resume air travel are about to discover a brand-new connectivity experience. That’s because Azul — Brazil’s largest airline by number of cities served and departures — has raised the bar by offering free in-flight Wi-Fi service from Viasat.
Now customers across all domestic flights equipped with the Viasat in-flight connectivity (IFC) service can enjoy social media apps, web browsing and messaging at no extra cost.
Azul is the first South American airline to offer Viasat’s IFC service. By choosing a partner already serving leading airlines worldwide, it expects to deliver a highly differentiated in-flight Wi-Fi experience — which will be important to Brazilians as they return to travel.
The agreement between the two companies includes outfitting more than 100 aircraft across the Azul fleet. In June 2021, the free IFC service is available on 17 Airbus A320/321 and two E195-E2 aircraft, with installations ongoing.
“Our goal is to help Azul differentiate itself by delivering a powerful in-flight Wi-Fi experience to every seat,” says Don Buchman, vice president and general manager, Commercial Aviation, Viasat. “We see our relationship with Azul as an important endorsement of the exceptional in-flight internet quality, performance and scale we deliver.”
Azul celebrates free in-flight Wi-Fi with customers, crew and employees
Azul celebrated the launch of its Viasat IFC service with customers, crew and employees during a flight from Campinas (VCP) to Belo Horizonte (CNF) — two of the busiest airports in the country in 2020 — on June 17.
Excited to showcase the advanced, fast in-flight technology, digital influencers Caren Sales, Jota Júnior and Cris Barth streamed Instagram live videos from 35,000 feet.
“You can still be connected with the people you like while traveling. I was messaging my family back home all the time and let them know when I arrived at the destination,” said Júnior. “And the service really works — I even streamed a live video during the flight. That’s incredible, amazing!”
In Brazil, Viasat’s IFC system leverages capacity on Viasat’s Ka-band partner satellite, SGDC-1, owned by Telebras. Aiming to connect people anywhere they are — in the air, on land, and at sea — Viasat plans to augment the SDGC-1 network with its next-generation satellite constellation, ViaSat-3, which will deliver even more data and higher speeds across Brazil. The ViaSat-3 satellite serving the Americas is scheduled to launch in 2022.
