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Hot on the heels of United Airlines operating its first transatlantic flight with Starlink onboard just two days ago, Iberia has confirmed that it operated its first (of any kind) Starlink-equipped flight last night when one of its Airbus A330s (registered as EC-MAA) departed Madrid for São Paulo.
The details
The introduction of Starlink on Iberia’s aircraft follows the strategic partnership IAG, Iberia’s parent group, signed with Starlink last November and as is standard for all airlines that are using (or plan to use) Starlink as their in-flight Wi-Fi provider, Iberia’s super high-speed Wi-Fi is free for customers in all cabins regardless of fare type.
Iberia is citing speeds of up to 500 Mbps and, as seems to be the case with all other Starlink installations, it says that the connection will be available from gate to gate rather than only once the aircraft reaches cruising altitude.
The airline has also said that the Starlink rollout across its fleet will happen progressively over the next two years with no specific aircraft-by-aircraft timeline or fleet-wide completion date given beyond that window.
This first flight sits within Iberia’s broader Flight Plan 2030 strategy which, we’re told, includes €6 billion in planned investment across customer experience, AI integration, fleet renewal, and a dedicated aviation innovation hub the airline is calling Ciudad Iberia.
Thoughts
We covered United flying its first Starlink-equipped widebody across the Atlantic just two days ago, and if you delve deeper into how United’s rollout is progressing, Iberia’s achievement looks a little less impressive.
United has already equipped over 400 aircraft and expects to reach close to 1,000 by the end of the year. Iberia, by contrast, is just getting its first aircraft into the air, with a two-year window to complete the rollout across a fleet that’s a fraction of United’s size to begin with.
Sure, United started its Starlink journey considerably earlier (it signed its Starlink agreement towards the end of 2024), but it was very quick to ramp up the installations and within a few weeks of its original announcement it was already announcing an accelerated timeline.
Within IAG itself, Iberia is also not leading, at least not yet.
British Airways got its first Starlink-equipped aircraft into the air on 19 March, a little over a week ahead of Aer Lingus, which followed on 29 March with its Dublin-New York JFK service and which has set itself a target of having its entire long-haul fleet equipped by the first quarter of 2027.
That makes Iberia just the third of the five IAG carriers to actually deliver on last November’s group-wide commitment.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that while British Airways may have had a head start on Iberia, that head start hasn’t translated into meaningful progress. As of the most recent information we have, British Airways has equipped just 5 aircraft to date and its rollout appears to have stalled since that initial burst back in March.
Being first off the blocks clearly counts for very little if the pace doesn’t hold up afterwards, so it will be interesting to see how Iberia’s rollout progresses from here.
Will it follow United’s lead and press on, or will it follow its big sister and have its rollout grind to an embarrassing halt? Time will tell.
As a final thought, customers should be very cautious of the 500 Mbps Wi-Fi speed figure that Iberia is using as it should be treated as a (very ambitious) ceiling rather than an expectation.
Real-world performance will vary with passenger load and satellite coverage at any given moment, so it will be prudent to expect something quite a bit lower than the headline number on a typical busy flight.
Bottom line
Iberia has flown its first Starlink-equipped aircraft, becoming the first Spanish airline and the third IAG airline to start to offer the service, with free gate-to-gate Wi-Fi promised across all cabins and a fleet-wide rollout expected to take around two years.
This is a small but important milestone for Iberia and it’s great to see the airline getting its Starlink rollout going, but Iberia is still playing catch-up with some of its competitors and there are much more important milestones to come (all long-haul aircraft equipped and full fleet equipped). How quickly Iberia reaches those milestones is what’s most important for its flyers.
