United Airlines have announced an agreement with Starlink to offer ‘gate to gate’ Wi-Fi for free to all passengers.
‘Gate to Gate’ Wifi Offering
Starlink, the mobile broadband provider owned by SpaceX, first went into orbit in 2019, and currently has 7000 satellites in low Earth Orbit with the capability of offering internet access to over one hundred countries, with over 3 million subscribers by May 2024. There are further plans to expand the number of satellites to around 34,000, allowing a great use of the service.
Speaking to Travel Radar, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said:
“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.”
Testing is expected to start in early 2025, with all 1,000 aircraft being fitted with the service by the end of the year.
United plan for the service to work world-wide, as well as be free of charge for the passenger.
This comes on the back of news that United plan to have a further 230 planes in service by the end of the year, all of which will need to retrofitted with new Starlink enabled software by the end of 2025.
What Is Starlink?
Starlink was publicly announced in January 2015, having been planned since at least 2004. However, the idea of ‘constellation satellites’ had been around since the early 1980s, with numerous companies, such as Celestri, Teledesic, Iridium and Globalstar creating ‘megaconstellations’ of around a hundred satellites each.
The initial research and development took place in Remond, Washington, with sixty operational Starlink satellites being launched by 2018. By 2021, a Commercial Service was offered, as well as being awarded $885.5 million in Government subsidiaries by the FCC.
By 2022, the final 7500 satellites were launched, and as of May of 2024 Starlink had over 3 million subscribers.
What are your thoughts on this move by United? Will we be seeing more carriers following suit? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
