In-flight internet is crappy, but more and more airlines think that Starlink is the solution. The latest company to sign with the SpaceX affiliate is Alaska Air Group, which announced that it will start offering Starlink Wi-Fi next year and expand the service to its entire fleet by 2027. “With Starlink already live on [Alaska Air Group subsidiary] Hawaiian Airlines, we’re proud that we’ll offer… gate-to-gate connectivity on nearly every aircraft across both airlines,” CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.
The company noted in a separate announcement that it will offer the perk for free to members of its new loyalty program called Atmos Rewards. T-Mobile, a partner with Alaska, will also offer a “seamless, ad-free Wi-Fi log-on” to the in-flight Starlink service, with more details to be announced later this year. Alaska Air touted the benefits of “ultra-fast speeds… up to 7x faster than the geostationary satellite-based Wi-Fi systems that most airlines use today.”
Other airlines may jump on board soon, too. British Airways is also on the verge of announcing a Starlink deal, Bloomberg reported, and SpaceX has also reportedly been in conversation with Dubai’s Emirates. Both of those are flagship carriers in their respective nations, so winning the business would be a large coup for Starlink against legacy operators like Viasat and Echostar.
Switching to Starlink isn’t necessarily cheap, though. It reportedly costs around $300,000 to equip a 737 and around half a million to install the system on a 787 Dreamliner. On top of that, airlines pay around $120 monthly per seat, plus another $120 for live TV, according to Bloomberg‘s sources. (None of the airlines in negotiations have confirmed any details.)
Despite those costs, carriers see reliable in-flight internet as a potential game-changer, as it would allow customers to work, communicate and stream videos or live TV. If the latter can be done reliably, it might even allow airlines to get rid of heavy and expensive on-demand entertainment systems.
The main downside for potential customers is SpaceX’s owner, Elon Musk. Some may view his fractured relationship with US president Donald Trump as a negative, while end-users may be turned off by his political affiliations — something that has seemingly affected sales of his Tesla EVs of late.