OnAir announced at the Paris Air Show it signed its first Asian carrier: AirAsia will retrofit all 150 of its Airbus A320 aircraft to use OnAir's picocell for GSM calls and GPRS data using satellite backhaul by 2013. The long delay? AirAsia has just 18 jets on hand now, with 132 arriving over the next six years.
AsiaAir will also use OnAir's system for their new long-haul, low-cost carrier AsiaAir X, which will employ A330s that are on order. While the press release doesn't state this, it's likely OnAir equipment would be installed on at least some of those jets before delivery, saving expense. That's the ultimate goal. OnAir is a joint venture of Airbus and SITA, an avionics integration giant.