Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 20 | Page 40

COUNTRY FOCUS: QATAR Ben Griffin, Vice President, MEASA, Inmarsat Aviation the data that is being generated by these systems to benefit their own operations and aircraft tracking. Qatar Airways were the first airline to approach Inmarsat to jointly explore this capability and we worked together to perform the suitability and evaluation of the data, before going ahead for an operational system earlier in 2017. This forms part of the highly sophisticated airline operations function that Qatar Airways 40 INTELLIGENTCIO currently uses within their facility to monitor and control every single aircraft within their extensive fleet and route network. Has Inmarsat got any more exciting projects being developed at the moment? We always have exciting plans. Naturally, until these are mature enough for public information, we tend to keep these to ourselves during the development phase, but Inmarsat is continually analysing the market, working with our customers to understand what the current and future needs are and to ensure that we’re always making provisions for solutions way ahead of time. Deploying satellite and other forms of aircraft connectivity solutions is neither cheap, nor quick, so being rapid and having the means to anticipate and deliver what will be required in five years’ time is www.intelligentcio.com