| Website | row44.com |
| Category | Mobile/Wireless |
| Phone | 818-706-3111 |
| info@row44.com | |
| Employees | |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Description | aircraft broadband connectivity |
| TOTAL | $58M |
| FUNDING TOTAL | $58M |
| Series A, 5/08 PAR Capital Management | $21M |
| Series B, 9/10 PAR Capital Management | $37M |
In 2004, John Guidon and Gregg Fialcowitz identified an opportunity with Hughes to leverage its global satellite infrastructure to provide inflight broadband services. In their view, current services available aboard flights were subpar at best due to both reliability and availability issues, and as technology entrepreneurs, John and Gregg had a vision of doing much better.
The name Row 44 was actually the brainchild of John. On one occasion, during his many flights as a college student, he had the rather unpleasant experience of sitting in row 44 on an aging DC-10 airplane. What made this particularly memorable for John was the combination of sitting by the lavatories, under the third engine, in a tiny seat amongst other tiny seats. In his view, if the person sitting in a row 44 type of seat can have an enjoyable flight because of inflight entertainment, then Row 44 will be doing a stellar job.
Today, Row 44 is the most widely deployed satellite-based inflight WiFi service, now deployed on more than 450 plans globally. The company’s growing list of airline partners includes Southwest Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Icelandair, Mango Airlines, Allegiant Air, Transaero Airlines and UTair Aviation.
