United Airlines announced a deal Friday with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network to provide free Wi-Fi on all its airplanes over the next few years.
United plans to connect all of its roughly 1,000 airplanes to the service, which company officials said would make the agreement the largest that Starlink has with a commercial airline. Testing will begin in 2025 with the first connected commercial flights expected later in the year.
“Our customers are going to be able to do things on the airplane like they do them in their living room,” Linda Jojo, United’s chief customer officer, said during a call with reporters Friday.
Details of the rollout, including which markets will have the new service first, are still being worked out. Asked when flights out of Denver International Airport might get the new internet connection, Jojo said with a laugh, “We’re taking requests.”
The installation of Starlink, which is owned by Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, will proceed by the type of aircraft. Jojo said United hasn’t decided which type of plane will be first. Implementing the service across the company’s fleet will likely take a couple of years, she said.
The equipment for Starlink will be engineered by the planes’ manufacturer and certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Starlink has approximately 6,300 satellites orbiting around the Earth. Jojo said the way the Starlink internet works is “just fundamentally different” from the way the Wi-Fi currently available onboard works.
“We certainly know it’s not enough any more just to say you have Wi-Fi on the plane. It has to be reliable. It has to work. It has to have great speed and Starlink checks all those boxes and more,” Jojo said.
United didn’t disclose the financial terms of the agreement with Starlink. Delta Airlines previously tested Starlink’s service, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Once United’s planes are connected to Starlink, passengers will be able to livestream TV shows and movies without a lag from buffering, the airline said. People will be able to download and upload documents and edit files in real time. And passengers can play live games, shop online and connect multiple devices at once under one user.
United currently charges passengers $10 to connect to the internet. People signed up for the frequent flyer program United MileagePlus pay $8. The Starlink service will be free.
Jojo said United approached the upgrade service as a revenue generator. “It’s really been about the customer experience.”
The current fees for internet service was a way to control the number of people using it to preserve bandwidth.
“Now that we know we have more than enough capacity, we’re thrilled to be able to offer it to all of our customers for free,” Jojo said.