Qatar Airways, in a pioneering collaboration with Google, has unveiled the “Sky Studio Challenge,” successfully demonstrating that full-scale commercials can be generated, produced, and uploaded entirely onboard a single flight using Starlink’s high-speed connectivity and advanced AI tools. This industry-first experiment pushes the boundaries of creative production and inflight technological capabilities.
The Sky Studio Challenge
The groundbreaking activation took place on November 17, 2025, during a 15-hour Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Atlanta. Onboard a Starlink-enabled Airbus A350 cruising at 35,000 feet, two complete commercials were created from scratch before the aircraft landed.
The challenge brought together two leading figures in AI filmmaking, PJ Accetturo and Torey Kohara, to execute the project. Leveraging Google’s latest Gemini video and image AI models, the team generated, rendered, edited, and published the films, marking the first time such a comprehensive creative workflow has been completed in the air.
High-Speed Connectivity Meets Generative AI
The success of the “Sky Studio Challenge” was powered by the airline’s Starlink connectivity, which provides speeds that rival most home broadband networks. This high-bandwidth connection was crucial for enabling heavy file transfers, complex AI scene generation, real-time cloud-based workflows, and live collaboration with creative teams on the ground.
Google’s state-of-the-art video generation model, Veo 3.1, was a key component, allowing the inflight team to transform creative briefs into high-quality visual content with unprecedented speed.
A New Benchmark for Inflight Innovation
Babar Rahman, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Qatar Airways, commented on the achievement, stating, “This first-of-its-kind challenge demonstrates why Qatar Airways is leading the industry in inflight connectivity, which our passengers can experience today rather than months or years from now. As the first airline to offer Starlink in the MENA region, we are already setting new benchmarks and delivering industry-first achievements at an unprecedented pace.”
Najeeb Jarrar, Google’s Regional Marketing Director for the Middle East and Africa, added, “It’s amazing to see our AI tools and models, including our state-of-the-art video generation model, Veo 3.1, being utilised to tell the story of Qatar Airways in an interactive and creative way. As a marketer, this allows us to create ads and deliver great work with a brief-to-launch timeline measured in hours.”
About Qatar Airways
Qatar Airways is the national airline of the State of Qatar. The airline, based in Doha, operates a hub-and-spoke network, linking over 170 international destinations across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania from its base at Hamad International Airport, using a fleet of more than 200 aircraft.
Source: Zawya
