Qatar Airways says it has managed to install Elon Musk’s high-speed Starlink internet service on 50% of its Boeing 777 fleet in just four months after slashing installation time from two to three days to less than 10 hours.
The Doha-based airline first announced its intention to offer gate-to-gate Starlink inflight Wi-Fi services across its fleet in October 2023, although the retrofit of the first Boeing 777-300 didn’t get underway until last October.
Qatar Airways initially only planned to have three aircraft retrofitted with Starlink internet by the end of 2024, but they increased the target to 12 aircraft. In the end, however, the airline had 15 planes retrofitted with gate-to-gate Starlink internet.
Within less than two months, the airline has now installed Starlink on 15 additional aircraft, bringing the total number of retrofitted Boering 777s to 30.
Starlink is a division of Musk’s SpaceX program that provides high-speed broadband service via a ‘constellation’ of more than 2,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, boasting speeds of up to 500 Megabit per second.
Along with upgrading its existing Wi-Fi product across its widebody aircraft fleet, the Starlink deal will also bring inflight internet to Qatar Airways’s single-aisle fleet of Airbus A320 series and Boeing 737 aircraft for the first time.
In the last year, Starlink won contracts from several major international airlines, including United Airlines and Air France. They will join existing customers of Starlink, such as Hawaiian Airlines and Air Baltic.
Later this year, Starlink is expected to face competition from Amazon, which is set to launch its own low earth orbit satellites as part of the company’s ambitious Project Kuiper program.
Amazon hopes to launch as many as 3,000 satellites using Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin rockets, although the first launch has been delayed since early 2024.
The parent company of British Airways and Iberia has confirmed that it is in talks with both Starlink and Amazon over upgrading its inflight Wi-Fi, although no deal has yet been reached.
Expect other airlines to announce significant Wi-Fi upgrades once Starlink faces some competition, and global carriers can start pitting Musk against Bezos for the best pricing.
