Jeppesen Demonstrates In-flight JeppView Updates

Showing off the company’s latest electronic database delivery capability, Jeppesen last month marked a noteworthy milestone by sending an entire worldwide JeppView chart update to an aircraft using an onboard wireless Internet connection. While en route over the North Atlantic on a flight from Europe to the U.S., Jeppesen president and COO Mark Van Tine logged on to Jeppesen’s Web site and successfully downloaded the full JeppView update to his laptop PC, according to the company.

“I am sending this in real-time from FL340 over Iceland to tell you that I just completed a full database update using the Connexion by Boeing in-flight Internet service,” Van Tine wrote in an e-mail to his development staff in Colorado. Although the database loaded on his PC was out of date by more than two months, the 100-megabyte file transfer was completed in about an hour, a Jeppesen spokesman said.

In performing the in-flight update, Van Tine demonstrated that current in-flight Internet connections “make it possible for users to access mission-critical flight information from any place at any time,” he said, adding this type of capability “is a core vision of Jeppesen and Boeing businesses such as Connexion by Boeing to move forward with an e-enabled air transportation system.”

Boeing owns Englewood, Colo.-based Jeppesen.