Airbus, Delta Air Lines, OneWeb, Sprint, and India's Bharti Airtel have announce the formation of the Seamless Air Alliance. The alliance will allow member mobile operators to extend their services into airline cabins, providing high-speed, low-latency connectivity from ground to air and back again at signficantly reduced costs.

The alliance, which is actively seeking additional industry operators beyond the five initial members, aims to eliminate the costs and hurdles commonly associated with acquisition, installation and operation of data access infrastructure by streamlining system integration and certification, providing open specifications for interoperability, increasing accessibility for passengers, and enabling simple and integrated billing.

OneWeb is a global communications company founded by Greg Wyler which aims to provide affordable Internet access to everyone on Earth via hundreds of small satellites in low Earth orbit. It has formed a joint venture with Airbus Defence and Space to produce the satellites. The first launch of OneWeb satellites is theoretically scheduled for this year.

New Delhi-based Airtel is the third-largest mobile operator in the world with operations in 16 countries across Asia and Africa.