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While this has been rumored for some time, we now have official confirmation from United Airlines that it had signed a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the provision of inflight wifi across its entire fleet.
United’s new inflight wifi
SpaceX may be best known for its high profile rocket launches and its trips to the International Space Station, but it’s most useful product (for most of the world) is its low earth orbit satellite network known as Starlink.
Starlink’s low Earth orbit satellites offer reliable, high-speed, low-latency internet access to thousands of people around the world (I’m one of them) and the fact that its network can be accessed from remote locations with relative ease, is a big selling point for SpaceX.
Presumably, this was also a consideration for United Airlines when it came to choosing a new internet provider for its aircraft (it can be useful to have an internet provider whose signal doesn’t cut out over oceans and polar regions), and SpaceX has clearly done a good job of proving Starlink’s reliability, coverage and worth.
We’re told that Starlink’s onboard wifi will allow for gate-to-gate internet service on seat back screens and personal devices and will provide flyers with access to a host of new entertainment options.
This what we’re told passengers can expect:
- Live streaming: Access personal streaming services and watch live TV, shows and movies without buffering, lag or the need to download content in advance.
- Workplace productivity: Download/upload documents and edit shared files in real-time.
- Gaming: Play live games and follow along on live gaming streaming services.
- E-Commerce: Shop online, schedule grocery delivery and make restaurant and travel reservations all from the comfort of your seat.
- Multiple devices: Connect multiple devices at once, under one user.
- Live support with the United app: Download the United app while inflight to get real-time info about connections and access customer support from a real agent through Agent on Demand.
More importantly, all of this will be offered without charge to all passengers on United’s mainline and regional aircraft.
This is what Scott Kirby (United Airlines CEO) has been quoted as saying:
“Everything you can do on the ground, you’ll soon be able to do onboard a United plane at 35,000 feet, just about anywhere in the world. This connectivity opens the door for an even better inflight entertainment experience, in every seatback – more content, that’s more personalized. United’s culture of innovation is, once again, delivering big for our customers.”
United Airlines says that it expects testing of the Starlink hardware to being in ‘early 2025’ and says that passengers can expect the first Starlink equipped aircraft to take to the skies ‘later’ in 2025.
That being said, with over 1,000 aircraft needing to be fitted with Starlink technology, it looks like it will be quite a few years before United Airlines can claim that all of its aircraft offer the same inflight wifi experience.
Quick thoughts
The two thoughts that immediately come to mind are ‘this sounds great’ and ‘I hope this rollout isn’t as slow as the rollout of the Polaris Business Class seats’ (a rollout whose timeline was best measured in geological ages).
As I indicated a little earlier, I’m a Starlink user, and so far I’ve been very impressed with the service. I was surprised at the fact that the equipment worked straight out of the box with no complicated set-up required (it was very Apple-like), and I’ve been surprised at the download/upload speeds that the service can offer with no obvious latency.
I appreciate that service to a stationary dish attached to a building and service to an aircraft moving at 500mph are two very different things, but, hopefully, my positive experience of Starlink’s earthbound product bodes well for what we can expect onboard.
Bottom line
Starting in 2025, United Airlines will begin fitting Starlink inflight wifi systems to all of its mainline and regional aircraft and it says that it will be offering the service for fee to all passengers (well, I assume the associated cost will be baked into the price of the airfare so it probably won’t really be ‘free’).
The rollout is like to take a few years, but given Starlink’s capabilities and the abomination that currently masquerades as inflight wifi on United’s aircraft, this should represent a huge step up in service for United’s flyers and if the Starlink service turns out to be as good as I expect it to be, this may even turn into a big differentiator for United.
