What is the scope of the deal?

PlaneSense will equip all 71 Pilatus aircraft in its fractional fleet with Gogo Galileo satellite Wi-Fi by the end of 2027, the company said on October 15, 2026. The agreement extends to the existing fleet and every future Pilatus delivery booked under the program.

The U.S.-based operator runs a fractional ownership structure built around Pilatus PC-12 turboprops and PC-24 light jets, the two airframes the deal covers. Connectivity will flow through the Eutelsat OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, accessed via Gogo's compact HDX electronically steered antenna.

When will the first aircraft fly with the new system?

The first PC-24 outfitted with Galileo is scheduled for delivery in late October 2026, with retrofits of the in-service jet fleet beginning shortly thereafter. Subsequent new PC-24s will arrive from the Pilatus factory with the equipment installed at the production line.

PlaneSense reports that internal bench testing demonstrated several passengers streaming video, joining video meetings and running other online services simultaneously. The claim represents a marked step up for an airframe class where inflight connectivity has historically been limited to basic email exchange.

What happens to the PC-12 fleet?

PC-12 installation falls under a separate agreement with Pro Star Aviation, a U.S. maintenance provider holding a supplemental type certificate (STC) authorizing Galileo fit on PC-12s with or without an existing connectivity package. The certificate also permits installations on aircraft that previously carried no cabin Wi-Fi at all.

The first PC-12s to receive the upgrade will be new-build PRO models delivered from Pilatus without factory connectivity, prepared at the line for the retrofit. Pro Star will then work through airframes already fitted with L3 air-to-ground systems across the existing fleet.

The STC permits operators to retain legacy equipment during Galileo installation rather than require its removal. The arrangement prevents redundant tear-out labor, a quiet but recurring cost line in fleetwide retrofit programs where every maintenance hour converts directly to aircraft downtime.

The work also shifts PC-12 avionics spend from optional owner-funded upgrades toward a fleetwide standard, a procurement pattern that compresses unit installation costs as the same kit is fitted across identical airframes over a rolling 12-month cycle.

Who is speaking for the operator?

"With Gogo Galileo, we are bringing reliable, high-performance bandwidth to our entire fleet," said PlaneSense President and CEO George Antoniadis. The single-sentence verdict reflects a strategic choice to standardize connectivity across the mixed PC-12 and PC-24 fleet rather than maintain two parallel cabin architectures, a discipline that typically lowers per-aircraft installation and certification overhead.

Why does this matter for Gogo's competitive position?

The fleetwide commitment is a notable commercial win for Gogo at a time when Starlink and other aviation connectivity providers are pressing aggressively into the business aviation segment. The PlaneSense contract puts 71 airframes on the Galileo installed base by year-end 2027, a concrete data point in a market where Starlink has so far dominated the marketing narrative.

A successful rollout would give Gogo an in-service reference among fractional operators, a category where dispatch reliability and passenger feedback often translate into procurement decisions at neighboring programs. For a connectivity supplier, install counts at a single reputable operator carry weight with the next buyer evaluating an upgrade.

Whether Galileo's OneWeb-backed throughput holds against Starlink's larger LEO constellation will become visible on PC-12 and PC-24 aircraft across the PlaneSense network, where antenna footprint, bandwidth cost per flight hour and real-world latency carry genuine operational weight. In the connectivity business, marketing narratives rarely survive contact with eight passengers trying to video conference at the same moment, and the first twelve months of in-service data from the 71-aircraft fleet will set the benchmark the next fractional operator evaluates against.