Last week, Air France became the latest major airline to announce that it would be moving its in-flight Wi-Fi to the Starlink network and offering it free to members of its frequent flyer program.

Starlink overtook a group of GEO providers including Anuvu, Intelsat, Panasonic Avionics and Orange Business, with a fleet of over 200 aircraft. The announcement comes just weeks after United Airlines also announced it would be moving its in-flight connectivity service on 2,500 aircraft to Starlink.

Hippo Dinner: With a robust network of more than 6,000 laser-connected Starlink satellites delivering 200-350 Mbps of connectivity to aircraft – compared to around 20 Mbps from GEO providers – Starlink has started gobbling up major airline contracts, right in the middle Hungry hippos style.

And a plus point for consumers around the world: Airlines offer their Wi-Fi for free on a large scale.

The free WiFi at 200 Mbps sounds pretty good to me. What do the airlines get out of it? Will Starlink make a breakthrough? What happens to the GEOs?

Why should we all give ourselves the gift of free WiFi?

JetBlue was the first airline to announce free Wi-Fi in 2017. Six years later, Delta followed suit. The domino effect seems to be gaining momentum, with United Airlines, Air France, Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airlines also recently announcing free flights.

Once you’re free… Marques Brownlee, one of the world’s greatest tech reviewers, often emphasizes his most important rule of online monetization: Once a product is offered for free, it is very difficult to get consumers to pay for it again. Ironically, he fell victim to his own rule when he released a paid iPhone wallpaper app last week and was subsequently ridiculed by the internet, which hates paying for anything.

Sitting on a plane is unique in that it is its own market, subject to an airline’s prices and offerings. But companies that choose to resist the free Wi-Fi movement risk the same consumer wrath as Brownlee.

Free and fast in-flight connectivity (IFC) is reaching a tipping point, and consumers will soon be expecting it.

Airlines also win: Free WiFi is also a relatively easy business decision for airlines. Long plane rides suck. They are boring and usually end with grumpy customers. The best way for airlines to appease passengers with a mostly miserable experience is to shove an iPad in front of them and let them indulge in the time-waster that is the Internet.

Fastest flight ever: A good example is Hawaiian Airlines. The company recently began offering Starlink service on its fleet of 42 Airbus aircraft. The company reports that customers often receive download speeds of over 200 Mbps without any capacity issues.

“We hear ‘the flight that went by so quickly’ or ‘my kids were entertained and got to play the game they play at home,'” Evan Nomura, director of IFEC at Hawaiian Airlines, told Payload.

All roads lead to freedom: In addition to other airlines’ free Wi-Fi trends and more pleasant customer experience, Nomura also cites SpaceX’s standards as a reason for offering free service. “When we signed up for Starlink, the only thing they offered was free.”

But in the airline business, nothing is truly free.

• Airlines average just 2.6% net profit, or $5.44 per passenger per trip.
• Airlines protect these razor-thin margins as if their liquidity depends on it.

The lost revenue from customers not having to pay for Wi-Fi and the roughly $25,000 monthly Starlink fees for the service will likely ultimately be reflected in ticket prices. Although the pass-through price would likely be minimal and the benefits of fast internet represent a win-win for all parties.

Does Starlink want to do the sweep?

Hawaiian Airlines faced a unique problem before announcing that it would add Starlink to its fleet of dozens of planes: the company was unable to offer it any In-flight connectivity, as most of its flights take place over the Pacific – a region notoriously difficult for satellites to cover due to a lack of land to place ground terminals and low demand in the region.

Hawaiian Airlines says there was an RFP process for the IFC contract, but Starlink and its Laserlink satellites were the only ones that could really solve the problem.

“We didn’t want to buy into a system that would immediately become obsolete. And the thing with Starlink is that they have assured us of an ongoing investment in their network,” Nomura said.

Switching costs: Retrofitting a fleet to support Starlink terminals is expensive and has contributed to slow adoption among airlines. Starlink charges $150,000 per flight terminal installation. The company is working to reduce installation time to under a day.

With airlines always looking to outdo each other to attract the all-important premium consumer, Delta (currently using Viasat, Intelsat and Hughesnet) and American Airlines (currently using Viasat, Intelsat and Panasonic) are also likely considering implementing Starlink.

Starlink is growing and growing: SpaceX announced last week that its Starlink user base has grown to 4 million customers, adding a staggering 1 million users in the last four months alone (thanks, Starlink Mini).

Growth is primarily driven by the consumer market, but aviation represents a growing, albeit limited, market. There are fewer than 10,000 commercial aircraft in the United States and fewer than 30,000 worldwide.

The company aims to expand further by entering into business aviation contracts and hopes to become standard service on all aircraft.

Checking in with GEO providers

GEO inflight connectivity providers are in a defensive posture, trying to protect their existing relationships and stop the bleeding.

This week, Gogo announced that it is acquiring rival Satcom Direct for over $600 million to head off the looming Starlink threat to its business aviation market.

Viasat – another major IFC provider – has seen its share price decline nearly 90% since SpaceX launched its first operational satellites in May 2019.

Other LEO providers such as OneWeb and the soon-to-launch Amazon Kuiper service could offer a Wi-Fi-like home experience. New solutions such as the micro-GEO birds built by Astranis are also finding innovative ways to improve IFC. However, given the high switching costs and ultra-fast, high-capacity connectivity that Starlink offers, the service is starting to make its way into our flying experience.