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UPDATE 7/18: United Airlines COO Toby Enqvist says the interference issue has been “pretty much resolved." He says the antenna on the Starlink dish was placed too close to another antenna used by pilots to communicate with air traffic controllers.
Original Story:
United Airlines' plans to retrofit its entire regional fleet with Starlink connectivity have hit a roadblock, at least temporarily.
United first started rolling out Starlink access using a free-with-ads model in May, becoming one of a select club—including Hawaiian Airlines and the boutique air carrier JSX—to offer flyers access to SpaceX’s satellite broadband service. Its speed and performance proved a hit with PCMag when it debuted, and United announced plans to install Starlink in its entire two-cabin regional fleet by the end of 2025.
However, Starlink has been turned off on almost two dozen Embraer E175 regional jets, according to air industry publication The Points Guy. The issue stems from static interference between the antennas that pilots use to communicate with air traffic controllers and Starlink’s antennas.
United confirmed the reports in a statement, saying that this type of radio interference is “fairly common with any new airline Wi-Fi provider” and that the issues are not a flight safety risk. “We expect the service to be back up and running on these aircraft soon,” a spokesperson said.
According to The Points Guy, roughly a third of the impacted planes have already had a fix applied. United doesn’t expect to cancel any flights as a result of the issue and will instead wait until each aircraft’s scheduled maintenance to fix the interference issue.
Though Starlink may be off the table for many domestic fliers, at least in the short term, United has introduced new ways for travelers to distract themselves in recent weeks. The Chicago-based carrier announced earlier this week that it’s bringing the streaming-audio service Spotify to the on-demand entertainment displays of over 680 of its aircraft, offering “specially curated versions of Spotify's most popular playlists.” The new Spotify integration will replace the “Audio” option on the home-screen menu of those displays.