(Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
Expect SpaceX’s Starlink to roll out to even more planes across United Airlines, including its larger aircraft.
On Friday, United said it had received regulatory clearance to begin using Starlink on the company’s Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration approved an amendment to apparently modify the Starlink hardware for the jets.
The Boeing 737-800 model represents the second largest aircraft in United’s fleet, with each jet capable of holding between 219 to 318 passengers. The first 737-800 to carry the Starlink Wi-Fi access is slated to take off from Newark/New York on October 15.
United also says it’s already installed Starlink “on more than half of the aircraft in its regional fleet.” In May, the satellite internet access started to become available over the company’s Embraer 175 regional jets.
To bring Starlink to the rest of its fleet, United says “Starlink continues to secure an FAA STC (supplemental type certificates) to install Starlink on every United aircraft type getting the new equipment – more than 16 total regional and mainline aircraft models.”
However, United initially encountered a static interference problem with the Starlink equipment on the Embraer 175 jets. But the airline eventually fixed the issue, which involved the Starlink antenna being placed too close to another antenna used by pilots to communicate with air traffic controllers.
Back in July, SpaceX announced that Starlink had become "active on more than 1,000 planes around the world.” Some providers including Hawaiian Airlines, Qatar Airways are already offering Starlink access while others such as Air France are preparing to outfit their jets with the satellite internet equipment.
Data from Ookla’s Speedtest has found that the Starlink access can offer median download rates between 120Mbps to 160Mbps, far higher than rival in-flight Wi-Fi systems.
However, SpaceX is starting to face competition from Amazon’s Project Kuiper, another low-Earth orbiting satellite internet system. Earlier this month, the airline JetBlue selected Kuiper to provide in-flight Wi-Fi. But it won’t start arriving until 2027. Meanwhile, Amazon is hinting it’ll begin offering Kuiper to actual users early in Q1.