United Airline said Friday that it plans to offer inflight Wi-Fi from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink for free on its hundreds of jetliners, the biggest inflight internet deal yet for the SpaceX business.<\/p>\n
The team-up comes as airlines have been investing in faster inflight Wi-Fi, sometimes offering it for free, in a bid to attract higher paying customers like business travelers.<\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines announced in early 2023 that onboard internet would be free for members of its SkyMiles loyalty program. Hawaiian Airlines, which has a Deal with Starlink, also offers complimentary inflight Wi-Fi. JetBlue Airways has offered free Wi-Fi for years.<\/p>\n
United currently offers inflight internet from a hodgepodge of providers, including ViaSat and Panasonic, and charges loyalty program members $8 and everyone else $10 for access on domestic and short-haul international flights.<\/p>\n
The carrier said it expects to have Starlink on its more than 1,000 planes over the \u201cnext several years\u201d with the first passenger flights outfitted with the service starting early next year. United said the Wi-Fi will offer \u201cgate-to-gate\u201d connectivity.<\/p>\n
United praised SpaceX\u2019s satellite service, saying it provides \u201cinternet access around the world, including over oceans, polar regions and other remote locations previously unreachable by traditional cell or Wi-Fi signals,\u201d a selling point for the U.S. airline with the most service over both the Atlantic and Pacific.<\/p>\n
SpaceX has steadily expanded its Starlink network and product offerings since its debut in 2020. There are currently about 6,000 Starlink satellites in orbit that connect more than 3 million customers in 100 countries, according to the company. SpaceX initially targeted consumer customers, but\u00a0has\u00a0expanded into other markets, including aviation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United Airline said Friday that it plans to offer inflight Wi-Fi from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink for free on its hundreds of jetliners, the biggest inflight internet deal yet for the SpaceX business. The team-up comes as airlines have been investing in faster inflight Wi-Fi, sometimes offering it for free, in a bid to attract higher paying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":48517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48518,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48514\/revisions\/48518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}