Editor’s Note: On May 8, John Persinos interviewed Steve Mastronikolas, an entrepreneur and business development consultant with experience across aviation, drones, maritime technology, and telecommunications. The following is a transcript condensed for concision, with questions in bold.
Steve Mastronikolas, entrepreneur and business development consultant with experience across aviation, drones, maritime technology, and telecommunications.
Airlines used to treat inflight Wi-Fi as a nice extra, but now passengers practically expect it to work like their home internet. How much do you think better satellite connectivity is starting to influence aircraft buying decisions and lease values?
On a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most influential, I would say: For airliners: 6; for private jets: 9
For context, it’s important to understand that better satellite connectivity is no longer just a perk; it is starting to affect aircraft choices and values. Airlines increasingly see reliable inflight Internet as part of the core product, so aircraft with stronger connectivity can be easier to place, lease, and resell.
Satellite connectivity’s impact is strongest on long-haul, premium, and competitive routes, where passenger expectations are highest. Even so, connectivity usually adds value rather than overriding fundamentals like fuel efficiency, range, cabin layout, and maintenance record.
You’ve helped make deals with parties across aviation, telecommunications, and autonomous systems. Are we approaching a point where drones and traditional aircraft are all operating inside the same interconnected ecosystem, especially around cargo and airport operations?
More needs to be done in this area. So far government agencies have been the bottlenecks to move things faster. For the military, it’s a matter of life and death. It’s essential and it’s happening more in this last period.
Cargo and airport operations are the closest to a shared connected ecosystem, with drones increasingly used for inspections, monitoring, and logistics, while airports and regulators are building the digital and airspace frameworks needed to integrate them.
The big limits are still regulation, safety, and interoperability. Accordingly, this is a controlled convergence rather than one fully merged system.
There seems to be a lot of overlap now between aerospace, telecom networks, renewable energy, and even maritime tech. Which parts of the world do you think are doing the best job of pulling all those pieces together?
I’d rank them as: 1) Nordic Europe; 2) UAE/Gulf; and 3) selected East Asian hubs.
Nordic Europe tends to win on systems coherence. such as tight coupling between energy transition goals, telecom modernization, and industrial policy.
The UAE/Gulf stands out more for speed and capital alignment, where large-scale projects can fuse aerospace, defense-adjacent tech, and energy infrastructure quickly under unified national strategies.
East Asian hubs, meanwhile, are strongest in manufacturing density and execution, but the integration layer often depends on corporate ecosystems rather than cross-sector public coordination.
Gaining greater prominence are fractional ownership models and alternative financing tied to drones, smart infrastructure, and next-gen mobility projects. Do you think aviation finance is entering a different era from the traditional leasing model?
Aviation finance is evolving but not replacing traditional leasing. The big shift is toward fractional ownership, shared-use structures, and financing tied to mobility platforms and infrastructure, especially in private aviation and emerging transport projects.
Traditional leasing still dominates commercial aviation because it remains the most practical way to manage aircraft risk and utilization. So the industry is moving into a hybrid era: old lease models plus newer, more flexible financing layers.
One important nuance is that these newer models are still very uneven in maturity. Fractional ownership and platform-linked financing tend to work best where utilization is high, data is rich, and assets are easier to standardize, like business jets, drones, and certain urban air mobility concepts.
In contrast, large commercial aircraft financing remains heavily anchored in long-term lease structures because airlines still prioritize fleet flexibility, residual value protection, and balance sheet efficiency.
As aircraft, satellites, drones, and telecom networks all become more connected, cybersecurity risks obviously get bigger. What concerns are keeping industry executives up at night right now, and where do you think the industry still has work to do?
Executives are most worried about cyberattacks that can spread across connected aircraft, drones, satellites, airports, and telecom systems, causing operational or safety disruptions.
The biggest gaps are stronger network separation, better authentication and encryption, more resilient monitoring, and tighter coordination across vendors and operators.
Another major concern is the increasing attack surface created by software-defined aviation systems and heavy reliance on third-party suppliers.
As more flight, navigation, and communications functions move onto connected platforms, executives worry about vulnerabilities being introduced not just in core aircraft systems, but within the software supply chain.
Thanks for your time.
This article originally appeared in Aircraft Value Intelligence.
John Persinos is the editor-in-chief of Aircraft Value Intelligence.
