Boeing says they’ve finished reviewing their Connexion inflight internet service, and they’ve decided to shutter the whole project.
In the short term, this is a bummer for customers of Lufthansa, SAS, ANA, Japan Airlines, and Singapore Airlines because they will now be internet-less. Those were the only airlines that used the service.
In the long run, you’ll never remember this existed as airlines move toward a ground-based system instead. This will probably be easier and cheaper, so Boeing must have realized it wasn’t worth keeping Connexion going with no long term future.
Connexion is (er, was) a satellite-based system that is kind of clunky. It added extra weight to the plane and it was expensive. It obviously was expensive for Boeing to operate, because they’re willing to take over $300m in charges just to shut the thing down.
