In brief: United Airlines has announced plans to install Starlink satellite Internet service on its entire fleet of aircraft. The speedy Wi-Fi will be complimentary, enabling true gate-to-gate connectivity for all passengers.
United said the rollout will take several years, but testing is expected to start in early 2025. Should everything go according to plan, United’s first commercial flights with Starlink service will take off later next year. United operates and is planning to install Starlink on more than 1,000 jets, making it the largest carrier to commit to offering Starlink at this scale.
The airline did not lay out a target speed, but said the installation will grant customers access to connected activities like live television, streaming, gaming, social media, shopping, and more, on built-in seatback screens or on their own personal devices.
A support document for Starlink Aviation notes the service can deliver download speeds between 40 Mbps and 220 Mbps, and that all passengers can access a streaming-capable connection simultaneously.
A 220 Mbps connection may not sound all that impressive when several ground-based providers are now offering 1 Gbps fiber connections to the home, but it is far speedier than what we have encountered on flights in the past. As Joanna Stern with The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted, some commercial flights are still using dated 3G ground-to-air tech. That is sufficient for e-mail and messaging, but not much else.
Service providers like SpaceX’s Starlink, however, rely on low-Earth orbit satellites to beam connectivity directly to planes at a much faster rate. In a recent test on a JSX flight equipped with Starlink, Stern was able to hit download speeds over 150 Mbps with “impressive” latency.
For now, Starlink is only available on two airlines: Hawaiian Air and JSX. United’s adoption will greatly expand availability, and no doubt prompt large competitors to step their game up – whether it be through a deal with Starlink or perhaps a provider that offers a combination of LEO and GEO satellite connectivity.