Pathetic: British Airways Suspends Starlink Wi-Fi Rollout After Five Planes - British Airways

Pathetic: British Airways Suspends Starlink Wi-Fi Rollout After Five Planes

Ben Schlappig — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:52:02 +0000

In November 2025, International Airlines Group (IAG) announced plans to introduce free Starlink Wi-Fi across the brand’s airlines, including British Airways. At the time, British Airways proudly boasted how it would be the first airline in the UK to introduce Starlink, even though Virgin Atlantic had announced similar plans several months earlier.

Continue reading: Pathetic: British Airways Suspends Starlink Wi-Fi Rollout After Five Planes

Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.

Rob in Miami — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:26:36 +0000

STOP IT! This ongoing silly ass issue with more GenXYZLGMX2+ etc on internet is rude. Relax for one minute, please. And, also, think about people around you!

Dave — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:40:03 +0000

Tim, https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2026/05/american-pivots-to-starlink-for-500-plus-airbus-narrowbodies/ "Separately, SES’s multi-orbit IFC solution, which uses both LEO satellite service from Eutelsat OneWeb and SES GEO service, is installed on American’s two-cabin regional jets" GEO isn't ideal. The latency is terrible for modern AJAX webpages. It's fine for broadcast video streaming, but that's about it. ~600ms+ vs ~30ms of latency is huge. It also loses coverage above certain latitudes. In other words it's worthless on polar flights. That's where LEO comes in. Up until SpaceX nailed reusability, deploying massive LEO constellations didn't make economic sense. That's why used GEO birds have been used. That whole calculation has changed, and it's why all of these other providers are now racing to do the same. But SpaceX clearly has an outsized advantage being able to use their own rockets to build their constellation. And with Starship and Starlink v3 it will be an order of magnitude higher that current solutions.

RKC — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:23:06 +0000

In other news… Just saw on ig that Wizz is getting Starlink in 2027. @Ben - do you think this will have any impact on Ryanair’s/O’Leary’s hard stance against installing it/clash with Musk on the matter from a few months back?

AeroB13a — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:33:18 +0000

Mason, old mucker …. read the posts and learn. Yes, every day is a school day, some of us are prepared to stand up and be counted when they are wrong. The majority tend to slink away into to bondoo hoping that nobody will remember their faux pas. P.S. Did I tell you about my recent BA flight down into the Southern Hemisphere? Well, the BA A380 F cabin, was a divine place to masticate one’s thoughts about the future. :-)

AeroB13a — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 07:26:30 +0000

Yes John, you are correct and I was wrong. My BA Captain neighbour has corrected his earlier comments about the Starlink rollout at BA. Evidently it was due to take place at the BA facility in Cardiff. However, due to downtime constraints on aircraft, it was switched to LHR. He believes that the technical staff carrying out the works are being diverted onto other tasks, thereby delaying the rollout further. The buzz is that BA Eng are well behind planned rollout schedules.

danroundtheworld — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:48:01 +0000

It's a shame for the customers but from BA, they're probably looking at it as a win. They can proclaim they were the first UK airline with Starlink because of their quick roll out. So much so they even have an advert saying that as you walk through arrivals at Terminal 3 in Heathrow which is the home of Virgin Atlantic. 787-8's that didn't have wifi now have wifi. They get a summer of extra revenue of passengers paying for wifi during their busiest season. Marketing and finance departments are all happy.

Phillip — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 02:20:01 +0000

Funny how British Airways is doing “gimmicky” and “pathetic” things - words that would never have been used to describe Emirates’ “gimmickry” and “patheticness”! How many aircraft with new First Class? And not even a timeline to begin with! Horses for courses!

NRGlobal — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:19:07 +0000

BA never lets us down in subpar everything, except the ads.

Pancho — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 22:55:59 +0000

BA is totally incompetent with most things, especially any IT-related issue. After several recent 10 hour flights with no working WiFi with them, nothing surprises me.