County Firms Join Team Seeking Big Airbus Pact : Avionics: Sony Trans Com and 2 Hughes Aircraft units will seek to provide entertainment and communications systems for the new A330 and A340 airliners. The contract could be worth $500 million.
Sony Trans Com Inc. of Irvine and two Hughes Aircraft Co. affiliates are teaming up to produce sophisticated in-flight entertainment and communications systems for passenger aircraft.
The venture hopes to win a contract to provide the high-tech systems for the new Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. The contract to outfit more than 700 planes is estimated to be worth $300 million to $500 million and is being sought by several companies.
The systems will allow passengers to watch movies on personal video screens directly in front of them, use credit cards to make purchases on shopping channels and make international phone calls from their seats. With satellite transmission of television signals, passengers can get stock market reports and up-to-the-minute news.
The team is made up of Sony Trans Com, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corp.; Los Angeles-based Hughes Aircraft Co.’s microelectronic systems division, which is in Rancho Santa Margarita, and Pasadena-based Avicom International, another Hughes unit. Team members will draw from their existing worldwide network to provide support and services for the systems.
Hughes Aircraft spokesman Bill Herrman said in Los Angeles that the venture is not a question of each company saving money in its bidding effort but “a joint effort for us to be able to provide a better and a more complete system than either of the companies can do individually.”
Under terms of the agreement, Sony Trans Com will supply state-of-the-art video and audio systems and programming services. Avicom, which was acquired by Hughes earlier this year, will provide in-flight interactive cabin management and other video/audio equipment and programming services. Hughes’ microelectronic systems division will supply information-distribution and service systems.
Hughes Aircraft, a subsidiary of General Motors Corp., generally supplies systems to aircraft manufacturers, while Sony Trans Com sells to airline companies.
The announcement comes barely three weeks after Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. formed an avionics research company in Irvine to develop similar systems. That company is also bidding for a piece of the Airbus contract.
Airbus Industrie is a European aircraft manufacturing consortium comprising Aerospatiale of France, Deutsche Airbus of West Germany, British Aerospace and CASA of Spain. Earlier this year, the consortium put out requirements for companies to be eligible to bid for the systems. The contract calls for a system that integrates all aspects of audio, video, passenger services and cabin management.
Among the current crop of international bidders, Airbus officials said two companies have qualified to bid, and both are from Orange County--Matsushita Avionics Development Corp. and the Sony/Hughes-Avicom team.
Two other companies are hoping to join the bidding but have not yet been given approval by Airbus. They are Airvision, the Valencia subsidiary of Philips Industries N.V., the Dutch electronics giant. Spa Fax of England is also vying for the Airbus contract.
“As far as we’re concerned, we have one competitor--Matsushita Avionics,” said John Landstrom, president of Sony Trans Com.
To Brinder Bhatia, Matsushita Avionics’ chief operating officer, the entry of a new rival “complicates the competitive environment of the A330 and A340 program.”
“The new team combines three relatively strong competitors of ours into one very strong competitor,” said Bhatia, who added that he is confident his company can win.
Hughes and Sony Trans Com are in the process of setting up program management offices dedicated to the A330 and A340 project, said Landstrom. The two companies will create a joint executive committee to oversee the whole program, he added.
