At the moment, we’re seeing a bit of an inflight Wi-Fi revolution, in terms of airlines introducing Starlink Wi-Fi, which offers speeds that are truly in line with what you’d expect on the ground (unlike the faux “high speed” Wi-Fi offered by Viasat, etc., which can be good, but not reliably great).
Among the “major” US airlines, we’ve seen Alaska, Hawaiian, Southwest, and United, all go with Starlink, while we’ve seen Delta go with Amazon Leo (a questionable choice, given the timeline). Well, American has now announced plans to upgrade its inflight Wi-Fi, and it’s great news.
In this post:
Free Starlink Wi-Fi coming to 500+ American planes in 2027
American is partnering with SpaceX to introduce Starlink Wi-Fi, with installation expected to begin as of early 2027. American plans to introduce this service on more than 500 aircraft. Specifically, it’ll be installed on all Airbus A320-family aircraft, including A319s, A320s, A321s, A321neos, and A321XLRs. However, there are no official plans for this to be introduced on other aircraft.
This service will be offered on a complimentary basis, and there’s no indication that you’ll even need to be an AAdvantage member to use the service.
Starlink is known for its high speed, low latency broadband internet, and the service is offered gate to gate. Starlink Wi-Fi allows for live streaming, productivity similar to on the ground (with high upload and download speeds), gaming, e-commerce, and more. Having recently taken my first flights with Starlink, I can confirm that this is a total game changer, as I see it.
Starlink is becoming increasingly popular with airlines. So far we’ve seen carriers like Aer Lingus, airBaltic, Air France, Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Copa Airlines, Emirates, Gulf Air, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia, Korean Air, Lufthansa Group, Qatar Airways, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and WestJet, all announce plans to install the service.
For context, American currently has Viasat Wi-Fi on most narrow body planes, and Panasonic Wi-Fi on most wide body planes. Wi-Fi is free for all AAdvantage members on Viasat aircraft, so American’s current Wi-Fi situation is pretty competitive.
Here’s how American’s Chief Customer Officer, Heather Garboden, describes this Starlink development:
“As a premium global airline, we are continuously seeking out world-class partners like Starlink to deliver what our customers need and want. The addition of Starlink solidifies American as a leading airline in keeping passengers connected in flight.”
“American is committed to elevating every aspect of our customers’ travel journeys, which in the air means keeping them connected and comfortable with the assurance they won’t have to download documents ahead of a flight or worry about lag time. Starlink’s high speed and low latency make the Wi-Fi more reliable, which matters when customers are trying to load pages, join real-time collaboration tools or stay connected consistently throughout a flight. We are excited to bring an at-home level of Wi-Fi experience to our narrowbody fleet, enabling our customers to work, game, stream and scroll endlessly.”
This is generally good news, but American is following
Hey, it’s great to see that American plans to introduce Starlink Wi-Fi, since I think this will quickly become an expectation among consumers, rather than something that’s just nice to have. So I commend American for making this announcement, though it’s also hard to pat the airline on the back too much:
- Installation is only starting in early 2027, roughly 18 months after United started introducing Starlink Wi-Fi; there was nothing stopping American from committing to this earlier (other than the cost)
- American only plans to install Starlink on under half of its aircraft (when you factor in regional jets), so I’m not sure why Boeing and Embraer planes aren’t getting this service; arguably it’s the Panasonic wide body planes most in need of the service
So yeah, this is good news, though United continues to have the edge here. American’s strategy is somewhere between Delta’s and United’s. Delta is (stupidly, in my opinion) waiting for Amazon Leo, which will only be available in 2028 at at the earliest (at which point every United plane is expected to have Starlink), and Delta only plans to install that on roughly half of its fleet.
We recently had reason to believe that American might be making a big inflight entertainment announcement, which could also include the return of seat back TVs on most narrow body aircraft. So I’m curious to see if there’s another announcement coming soon…
Bottom line
In early 2027, American Airlines plans to start rolling out Starlink Wi-Fi, which is an exciting development. However, the service will only come to around 500 aircraft, consisting of all narrow body Airbus planes. I’m not sure why Boeing planes aren’t getting any love or what’s going on there, because that doesn’t really strike me as a comprehensive solution.
Either way, it’s good news. In terms of the “big four” in the US rolling out next generation Wi-Fi, this should put United first, then Southwest, then American, and then Delta.
What do you make of American’s Starlink plans?
They have to counter the sheer utter crap that is Airbus with something. Starlink is just the thing for that.
the only thing dumber than the notion that UA has an advantage with WiFi when it only has 10% of its mainline fleet equipped with high speed WiFi is that DL is making a mistake by not doing what everyone else is doing by going with Amazon.
Amazon is a far larger and more successful CONSUMER company; Musk's most customer direct company is Tesla which continues to shrink.
Delta has spent more of its...
the only thing dumber than the notion that UA has an advantage with WiFi when it only has 10% of its mainline fleet equipped with high speed WiFi is that DL is making a mistake by not doing what everyone else is doing by going with Amazon.
Amazon is a far larger and more successful CONSUMER company; Musk's most customer direct company is Tesla which continues to shrink.
Delta has spent more of its 100 years zigging when others have zagged and this will be yet another issue where the near-sighted aviation bloggers will be wrong yet again.
DL already has high speed WiFi on 90% of its fleet and also is the only US airline that offers free high speed WiFi across the US but also across the Atlantic and to S. America.
As for why AA is only doing half of its fleet is because there simply is no company that can provide the bandwidth to satisfy the growing number of customers that want satellite WiFi - and the market is not just airlines.
Even Starlink will struggle with capacity; DL's strategy of using multiple providers including Viasat, Hughes and Amazon is to get as much capacity from as many providers -not unlike what it has done with aircraft and engines and why DL was able to take delivery of more Airbus widebodies than all of the 787s that Boeing delivered to AA, AS and UA. COMBINED.
Technology is constantly moving and it is UA that is the furthest behind in free high speed WiFI installations; they don't even offer a slow speed free option now that T Mobile has pulled the plug.
AA is second behind DL in in-service high speed installations; they will be fine with a multi-platform system just as DL has - AA is just playing catch up like everything else AA is doing.
Who cares, Timbits? Delta screwed the pooch with this. Admit it for once. Well, you won't, because that would admit that Delta screwed the pooch on this, and that can happen to the Only Perfect Airline In The World. And when you use the phrase "hi-speed wifi" in regard to Delta, you're missing two letters, an "s" and a "t". I'm hoping that some day, one of us triggers the apoplexy that will kill you....
Who cares, Timbits? Delta screwed the pooch with this. Admit it for once. Well, you won't, because that would admit that Delta screwed the pooch on this, and that can happen to the Only Perfect Airline In The World. And when you use the phrase "hi-speed wifi" in regard to Delta, you're missing two letters, an "s" and a "t". I'm hoping that some day, one of us triggers the apoplexy that will kill you. That way you can end up buried in the Secret Biscoff Tunnel below ATL.
They are trying to jump on Delta's sinking premium theme, but this isn't going to help much given the limited deployment. Still better than Delta's decision to wait on Amazon. Moral of the story is fly United or Southwest!!!
A smart move by AA leadership, though going after the usable ViaSat narrowbodies ahead of the very unusable Panasonic widebodies must be an indicator that they're stuck in the Panasonic contract for a period beyond 2027. This is unfortunate. Now... I can't wait for the comments from TD.
Seems like a very shortsighted decision on AA’s part to not include the Boeing planes (especially the widebodies). Hopefully it’s a contract issue that can eventually be resolved.
"“As a premium global airline.'"" LOL. Only one of those things is arguably true, as AA is sub-premium and mostly U.S. domestic. Given that most of its profits come from credit card co-branding, one could argue that air transport is just a side hustle.
Cute post but delta is the least profitable flying planes and the most reliant on credit cards to be profitable.