EL AL Israel Airlines plans to use ViaSat’s in-flight internet system on 16 new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. ViaSat's in-flight internet equipment will be installed on the aircraft at Boeing's factory beginning in early 2018.

To provide internet access from the air, ViaSat uses Ka-Band links with geostationary satellites, using the ViaSat-2 satellite for coverage in North America and across the Atlantic to Europe and KA-SAT for coverage in Europe. According to ViaSat, ViaSat-2 provides the highest capacity of any communications satellite in orbit and the most Ka-Band capacity across the Atlantic (see figure). The KA-SAT satellite, jointly owned by ViaSat and Eutelsat, has the most satellite capacity over Europe.

ViaSat’s service is also deployed on EL AL Boeing 737s flying routes from Tel Aviv to several European cities.

Nimrod Borovitz, head of strategy and business development at EL AL, said, “We made a promise to our passengers as well as our flight and ground crew to deliver the future of the connected aircraft, where we could provide on-the-ground internet experiences — with the industry's fastest speeds and highest quality — at 35,000 feet. By partnering with ViaSat, we feel confident we can achieve this goal.”

Comparison of satellite gateway uplink capacity in GHz. Source: ViaSat