What you need to know
- Hawaiian Airlines has partnered with Starlink to provide in-flight "high-speed, low-latency" Wi-Fi.
- Starlink's satellite internet connectivity service will launch on the airline carrier's Airbus A330, A321neo, and upcoming Boeing 787-9 aircrafts.
- The service will be installed on aircrafts in 2023.
While Elon Musk is busy securing his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, his other company, SpaceX, is focused on trying to make our lives (or at least our commutes) just a little bit better. Hawaiian Airlines announced this week that it has entered a partnership with Starlink to provide in-flight broadband on several of its aircraft.
The deal is the first between Starlink and a major airline carrier (charter airline company JSX recently announced a similar partnership) and will provide passengers with "high-speed, low-latency broadband internet access" on flights between the Hawaiian islands, the U.S., Oceania, and Asia. The connection will be seamless, and passengers won't have to deal with registration pages or payment portals that are common on many airlines. The best part: the service will be available to passengers for free, unlike other in-flight Wi-Fi services that come at an additional cost.
"When we launch with Starlink we will have the best connectivity experience available in the air," president and CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, Peter Ingram, said in a statement. "We waited until technology caught up with our high standards for guest experience, but it will be worth the wait. Our guests can look forward to fast, seamless and free Wi-Fi to complement our award-winning onboard Hawaiian hospitality."
Thanks to its fleet of low-Earth orbit satellites, Starlink has been one of our favorite home internet services, particularly in rural areas where many of the best wireless carriers in the U.S. often fail to offer good service. It'll be interesting to see just how well Starlink performs in moving aircraft much higher off the ground (and closer to its satellites).
Hawaiian Airlines and Starlink plan to install the service on select airlines as early as 2023. It will be available on the Airbus A330, A321neo, and incoming Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
