Airlines Are Upgrading Wi-Fi. Not All Are Using Elon Musk’s Service.
Mr. Musk, whose company SpaceX owns Starlink, has attacked the top executive of Delta Air Lines for not selecting the internet provider.
Mr. Musk, whose company SpaceX owns Starlink, has attacked the top executive of Delta Air Lines for not selecting the internet provider.
Airplane Wi-Fi has long been slow and balky. But airlines are racing to change that.
Hoping that faster, more reliable internet access will help them attract and retain customers, many carriers are upgrading their planes to use Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. On Thursday, American Airlines said it would outfit more than 1,000 planes with Starlink.
But Delta Air Lines has chosen not to go with Starlink, which has upset Mr. Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive.
Mr. Musk said last month that Delta’s chief executive would “lose his job” for choosing Amazon’s satellite service, and he earlier attacked the top executive of Ryanair, the European carrier, for snubbing Starlink, too. This week, he said Indian oligarchs were blocking Starlink there, which he called a “a crime against the people of India.”
From fee to free.
Lufthansa was the first commercial airline to offer in-flight internet access in 2004, using a service developed by Boeing. But Boeing shut down the project just two years later.
Other providers filled the void, and U.S. airlines started to offer Wi-Fi in the late 2000s. But few passengers used those services, which were often expensive, slow and unreliable. Over the years, the costs started to fall.
In 2023, Delta eliminated Wi-Fi fees for members of the company’s loyalty program. JetBlue Airways had been offering free internet access for years — but Delta kicked off an industry shift.
