Kenya Airways connects global offices with VSAT

Kenya Airways has embarked on a campaign to improve network efficiency by interconnecting all of its offices in Africa, Asia and Europe via satellite.

The airline has contracted global communications company SITA to interconnect its offices with VSAT (very small aperture terminal) technology at a cost of 750 million Kenyan shillings (US$10.4 million). The deal between Kenya Airways and SITA will last five years.

The switch to VSAT technology will enhance the airline's network capacity by five fold and increase its availability to 99.7 percent, said Titus Naikuni, Kenya Airways managing director.

The technology upgrade is part of the company's strategy to develop its human resources and systems over the next two years, Naikuni noted.

"SITA's VSAT network has a lower operating cost. This, combined with the reliability of a satellite-based network and lower latency, allows the national carrier to run operations more efficiently as we continue to grow our business," explained Kevin Kinyanjui, the airline's information systems director.

"VSAT networks are ideal for airlines operating in Africa. The alternative terrestrial links are less reliable and have regular outages," added Khodr Akil, SITA regional vice president for Africa. "The cable structure in the continent is old and susceptible to theft."

The network is designed to allow each of the airline's 46 remote sites to have a single satellite hop to both the head offices in Nairobi and the reservations host in Europe, ensuring better application response time.

SITA is deploying a similar network for Air France in Africa and has already deployed VSAT networks for Air Tanzania and Air Madagascar.