A Hawaiian Airlines A321 aircraft with Starlink WiFi installed.
Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines is rolling out free Wi-Fi via SpaceX’s Starlink on commercial flights this week, the companies told CNBC, the first major U.S. airline to offer the satellite service.
“SpaceX has really cracked the code — literally, in terms of technology — to be able to deliver a wide bandwidth of very high-quality connectivity on an airplane with a global reach,” Peter Ingram, CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, told CNBC.
Hawaiian’s plan for free Wi-Fi comes as airlines ramp up their offerings for high-speed connectivity. JetBlue Airways offered free Wi-Fi on board last year as well Delta Air Lines launched free internet for rewards program members after years of planning.
Hawaii has an extensive flight network over the Pacific Ocean, serving the US mainland, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, among other destinations, from Hawaii.
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“It really feels like an experience that shouldn’t be possible when you’re on a commercial airline. And you can go online and experience it in a way that’s similar, if not better, than you can experience your own home.” , Chad Gibbs, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink business operations, told CNBC.
“Now we have a completely different paradigm, which is that we have incredible amounts of capacity and bandwidth that we can bring on board,” Gibbs added.
Hawaiian signed an agreement with SpaceX in April 2022, seeking to use the Starlink network – which consists of more than 5,000 satellites in low Earth orbit and has more than 2.3 million customers worldwide. The airline has not previously offered in-flight Wi-Fi.
A Starlink terminal installed on a Hawaiian Airlines aircraft.
Hawaiian Airlines
The companies did not disclose the value of the deal or how much it costs to install each of the aviation-specific Starlink terminals on a commercial aircraft.
Ingram stressed, however, that “the cost of this has come down from what the first Wi-Fi systems were.” He noted that Hawaiian is “actively” installing Starlink terminals, with six completed on its Airbus A321 planes so far.
In total, Hawaiian expects to add Starlink to 18 of its A321 aircraft and 24 of its A330 aircraft later this year.
“We think it’s really going to set a whole new standard for connectivity on airplanes,” Ingram said.
The companies originally planned to begin installing the Starlink terminals last year, but Ingram said SpaceX needed to launch more next-generation Starlink satellites and receive certification from the Federal Aviation Administration before installation could begin.
SpaceX is steadily pursuing the permits required for a wide variety of aircraft. It has been certified for smaller jets, with the semi-private charter JSX starting to use the service in late 2022.
“To date Starlink has been used on more than 30,000 flights, on flights across the US and around the world,” Gibbs said.
In addition to Hawaii, SpaceX announced Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi deals with Latvia’s airBaltic, Japan’s Zipair and Qatar Airways.
The addition of Starlink service to Hawaii comes shortly after the airline closed a deal late last year to be acquired by Alaska Airlines in a $1.9 billion deal.
— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.