Aireon is a company that provides global, space-based air traffic surveillance and data services for the aviation industry. It utilizes a network of ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) receivers hosted on the Iridium satellite constellation to track aircraft worldwide. Aireon's primary customers include Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) like NAV CANADA, NATS, ENAV, and airlines, offering improved safety, efficiency, and environmental benefits through optimized airspace management. Key partners include Iridium Communications, Airbus, Boeing and Cirium.
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Aireon is most of the way through obtaining certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency that would enable the company to provide pan-European service to multiple air navigation service providers.
The 2019-01-11 launch completes Aireon’s network of aircraft-tracking sensors that are included as payloads onboard each Iridium Next satellite.
The $69,000,000 investment from NATS enabled Aireon to pay Iridium $8,100,000 so far 2018.
Aireon operates a space-based ADS-B network onboard Iridium Next to expand real-time tracking of airplanes over oceans and regions not covered by ground-based radar.
Aireon will roll out an aircraft-tracking service called GlobalBeacon on 2018-11-05 with partner FlightAware that provides airlines with location updates every minute.
Aireon is obligated to pay Iridium a $34,000,000 bill payable over 12.5 years for the share of the satellites’ onboard electricity required to power the Harris Corp.-built ADS-B payloads.
Aireon will require a full, 100-percent complete and redundant hosted-payload constellation to provide flight regulators with unfailing updates every eight seconds or faster over any area in the world.
Aireon raised $69,000,000 in May from NATS, the United Kingdom’s privatized air traffic management company.
Aireon is obligated to pay Iridium annual fees for continuing to host the ADS-B payloads in orbit, including $20,000,000 a year for data service.
Aireon is close to securing a credit line intended to allow it to catch up on $200,000,000 in overdue payload hosting fees to Iridium.
Aireon is required to pay at least $14,000,000 of its $200,000,000 debt in 2018 and an additional $16,000,000 in 2019.
Aireon’s pending credit line would enable Aireon to pay a total of $35,000,000 in 2018 and $23,000,000 in 2019 toward its debt to Iridium.
Iridium borrowed $360,000,000 in March as a hedge against relying on Aireon hosting fees to maintain its liquidity while paying down Iridium Next construction debt.
Iridium plans to use Aireon payments to pay down its $1,800,000,000 in French export-credit loans for the 81 Iridium Next satellites ordered from Thales Alenia Space in 2010.
Aireon’s remaining $200,000,000 debt balance of $142 million, plus accrued interest, is scheduled to be paid off in 2020 and 2021.
Aireon has raised $351,000,000 to date from investors including NATS, Nav Canada, and ENAV that have taken equity stakes and committed to be customers.
Aireon has 50 hosted payloads in orbit and five more payloads launching on Iridium’s next mission scheduled for 2018-05-22 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Aireon owes Iridium $200,000,000 in hosting fees.
Aireon’s aircraft-tracking sensors are hosted payloads built onto the Iridium Next satellites.
Aireon has raised $351,000,000 to date.