United Airlines: More Than 25% of Our Daily Departures Now Offer Starlink Wi-Fi

Your odds of getting free Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi on a United Airlines flight have improved dramatically since that carrier put SpaceX’s satellite broadband into service last May. Today, the Chicago-based airline announced that one fourth of its daily departures—about 1,200 flights—now offer connectivity from Starlink’s vast constellation of broadband satellites in low Earth orbit. 

Since United began this rollout by putting Starlink on regional jets that had been stuck with aging air-to-ground Wi-Fi service, your odds of getting this fast service are much higher than 25% on smaller jets in United’s colors.

The airline’s press release says it’s now added Starlink to “most of its two-cabin regional fleet”—meaning Embraer E170 and E175 jets as well as Bombardier CRJ-550 and CRJ-700s—adding up to “more than 300 aircraft” with this upgrade. 

United says more than 7 million passengers have now taken more than 129,000 flights on those planes, with 3.7 million devices connecting in-flight. United does not charge for Starlink, but it requires passengers to log in with an account in its MileagePlus frequent-travel program and sit through some advertising before connecting. 

United has commissioned some advertising of its own to mark this milestone: a Super Bowl ad calling its deployment of Starlink “one giant leap for inflight Wi-Fi.” The airline says it will air the ad during the game in local markets served by Starlink-equipped regional jets, such as Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, and Kansas City.

A United fleet-tracking site maintained by aviation enthusiasts shows nearly complete Starlink deployment on E175s and CRJ-550s but almost none on the other two types. Flight status updates on United’s site and in its apps will show Starlink availability; you can also recognize planes equipped with it by the small, flat antennas atop their fuselages. 

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The smallest regional jets flying United routes, the Embraer E145 and the Bombardier CRJ-200, have yet to see any Starlink installations, but also have never had Wi-Fi onboard or even power outlets. 

United has also begun putting Starlink hardware on its larger, mainline aircraft, with one 737-800 already in service with that upgrade. PCMag’s Eric Zeman happened to fly on that particular Boeing jet to CES in January and reported a download speed of 320Mbps before his departure from Newark.

United’s announcement forecasts Starlink installations to reach more than 500 mainline jets by the end of 2026. The carrier first announced its plans to adopt SpaceX’s service in September 2024, and it remains the largest airline to have inked a Starlink deal. 

Press here for internet. (Credit: United Airlines)

United’s largest domestic competitors—Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines—are sticking with in-flight broadband delivered via geostationary-satellite networks, which typically yield somewhat slower downloads, much slower uploads, and significantly higher latency. Alaska Airlines and its Hawaiian Airlines subsidiary, however, are also switching to Starlink, while JetBlue will adopt Amazon’s Leo service after that low-Earth-orbit constellation enters service.

Internationally, several airlines have signed up with Starlink, including Air France, Air New Zealand, British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, and SAS. Low-cost carrier Ryanair’s refusal to consider Starlink, however, led SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to respond online with his characteristic maturity and demand that Ryanair fire CEO Michael O’Leary, who later bragged that news coverage of this squabble led to a bump in ticket sales.

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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.

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