“Capital follows confidence” as defence courts private money
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
OnAir has been selected by Airbus as the first connectivity solutions provider to be linefit offerable on A350 XWB.
OnAIr is currently the only service provider to comply with Airbus’s A350 stringent inflight communications architecture (based on the ALNA V2 platform). OnAir is already linefit and retrofit offerable on the other Airbus families, and has been certified by EASA on nine Airbus aircraft types.
“OnAir is proud that its state-of-the-art connectivity technology has been chosen onboard the latest generation of aircraft on the market,” said Benoit Debains, CEO of OnAir. “OnAir services can be integrated with all possible inflight entertainment and communication systems. This will be very important for the airline industry and in particular for the 40% of Airbus A350’s customers who have already chosen OnAir’s connectivity solutions.”
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
The Department of National Defence expects initial contracts to deliver thousands of uncrewed systems, but has yet to establish the quantities, capability mix or deadline behind Ottawa’s promised tenfold expansion.
The company told Shephard that Ukraine is operating modified Protector weapon stations originally supplied for armoured vehicles, with human operators authorising engagements from hundreds of kilometres away.
A report from the Council on Geostrategy argues the UK should move away from a traditional balanced force and shift investment to naval, air and space capabilities, backed by a larger fleet of attack submarines and deeper AUKUS integration.
At its technology summit in London, attended by Shephard, Thales UK examined the importance of speed to delivery, the growing focus on cross-domain capabilities and how procurement reform could be crucial for future battlefield advantage.
Are all systems ready for the next mission? Have upgrades been applied? Are all assets aligned to deploy together, on time and fully prepared? In modern defence operations, readiness is no longer measured platform by platform. It is measured by how well people, assets, data and decisions move together — across land, sea and air.