The business, which will operate under the brand name “Aalto”, is already in talks with a range of commercial customers as well as potential strategic partners. It will need to raise funds to help with its commercialisation.
“Airbus is not a company that offers telecom services,” Mr Halawi told the Financial Times. “The idea of the carve-out is to bring like-minded partners to the equation and to be able to scale this business.”
Airbus confirmed it had hired Morgan Stanley, saying it planned to “maintain ownership in Aalto, where the Zephyr program resides, but will consider outside investment to help accelerate the company’s objectives”.
Industry executives say that high-flying, solar-powered drones offer advantages over conventional satellites including lower costs and greater flexibility.
The Zephyr, Mr Halawi said, offered a “nice mix of capabilities” to customers such as mobile operators looking to extend broadband coverage to remote or disaster-stricken areas. By being close enough to Earth it was able to “talk directly to end-user devices” while at the same time it had the persistence of a satellite and offered greater coverage than terrestrial infrastructure, he added.
The company plans to set up “Aalto ports” at five or six locations around the world, including in the US and Middle East.
Zephyr already has some revenue from earlier customers, notably government customers including the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The company currently has ten aircraft at its site in Farnborough in the UK.
Last year the latest system, the Zephyr Z8, flew 64 consecutive days before crashing. Mr Halawi said that a component had failed during bad weather but that the design was now complete.
“It’s a mature program. It needs a bit of [commercialisation] in order for us to … offer services.“
Financial Times