John Goeken sold his first in-flight telephone service venture to GTE Corp, became dissatisfied that GTE was not exploiting it to its full capability, went off and formed the Goeken Group Inc, which operates In-Flight Phone Corp. Now he is preparing to sell out again, with MCI Communications Corp his new partner. MCI will initially […]
John Goeken sold his first in-flight telephone service venture to GTE Corp, became dissatisfied that GTE was not exploiting it to its full capability, went off and formed the Goeken Group Inc, which operates In-Flight Phone Corp. Now he is preparing to sell out again, with MCI Communications Corp his new partner. MCI will initially invest $20m for a 5% stake in Goeken Group $4.7m for preferred equity for the 5% stake, and $15.3m in debt and other services. But MCI also gets a three-year warrant to acquire an additional 45.1% of Goeken Group for $44.2m. The would-be British Telecommunications Plc affiliate will also provide marketing and branding resources and customer service as part of the agreement and will be the exclusive long-distance provider for In-Flight Phone Corp. The FlightLink digital system consists of a telephone handset and viewing screen installed at each airline seat. Passengers can make phone calls, receive paging messages and send facsimile messages. It is also developing revolutionary new services for airline passengers, such as FlightLink On-The-Air, which will be a high quality, live multichannel audio service, and also live television broadcasts.
