Global Eagle Entertainment’s newly-installed chief executive, Josh Marks, is looking forward to a bright future for the firm following a turbulent couple of years.
The California-based in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) provider has undergone several recent changes, including the promotion of Marks earlier this month to replace Jeff Leddy, who will become executive chairman, and a $150 million capital injection from Searchlight Capital Partners.
Marks describes the management change as “orderly” and says the company has put past financial troubles behind it. Global Eagle was delayed in filing its 2016 annual earnings report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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“We’re fully on track with all our reporting now – those issues were addressed. We’ve also raised a very significant amount of capital from a New York equity fund which demonstrates that we have the financial strength to thrive over the long term,” says Marks.
Global Eagle is taking a “technology-agnostic” approach which includes offering an antenna that connects to either Ka- or Ku-band satellite services. Further down the line the company will “advocate a future of open architecture” that will encompass low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites when they come on stream.
“The industry recognises that future networks will be multi-ordered. We’ll need a system that can operate between geostationary and non-geostationary [satellites], based on available capacity,” says Marks, adding that Global Eagle will “manage the complexity of which network the capacity comes from”.
Separately, Global Eagle announced during the show that All Nippon Airways has awarded it a three-year contract for IFEC services, extending a long-term agreement already in place between the two companies.
Source: Flight Daily News
