Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
I've followed this entire thread and there is one point that seems to have been missed about Inmarsat supposedly offering free tracking for airlines.
Narrow body aircraft such as the A320 and B737 do not have satellite coms as standard equipment. It is a customer option (read: expensive). Most airlines do not order it. Perhaps it is standard equipment on wide bodies but that would not have helped in this incident.
So to suggest that as a cheap option for narrow body airliners is ignoring a glaring fact.