China will never be a real competitor in anything. Inside China yes but no place else.

My Latin tells me that is should be ‘Airbi’. When Toyota introduced the Prius, it stated the the plural was ‘Prii’. I have not seen that, anywhere. It’s ‘Priuses’. On the distal hand, railroad crews used to refer to multiple caboose, as ‘cabooses’, rather than ‘cabeese’, or something like ‘moose’, which is the same, singular and plural. As for the ‘Airbus’ commonly used collective noun, it seems your first parenthetical surmise is the one.

Anent the Internet on Airbus aircraft it seems the answer to your question is ‘yes.’

Robert Zimmerman,

I agree that a universal PRC LEO broadband presence on Airbus planes will make them a harder sell outside the PRC, particularly in the US. Boeing hasn’t exactly been enjoying vibrant good health in its Commercial Airplanes division for some years but could, I think, get a lot of mojo back if it was to make a similar deal with Starlink.

Andi: It is purely my speculation that this is for Airbus planes to be sold to China. It could very well be for all its planes.

If the latter Airbus however might find itself having problems selling those planes to U.S. airlines.

Andi: This is of course if you fly on an Airbus plane, and it is one used by China, based on my assumption this deal is linked to a purchase of planes by China.