The days of slow, unreliable Wi-Fi on aircraft could be coming to an end with Qatar Airways becoming the first to fit Starlink in a Boeing 777 aircraft.

The first Starlink-enabled flight took place today from Doha to London, with the airline’s executives demonstrating its capability by holding a live video call with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk aboard the flight.

The company claims it will have a dozen aircraft fitted with Starlink by the end of the year, with the rest of its fleet equipped with the high-speed satellite broadband by the end of next year.

The in-flight Wi-Fi service is free to all passengers and will allow them to “stream content, play games and upload/download files as they would on the ground,” according to a statement issued by the airline.

Low Earth Orbit Advantage

Starlink is theoretically much faster than the satellite internet services that have previously been used on airlines because its satellites are in Low Earth Orbit at altitudes as low as 500km from the ground, unlike traditional geostationary satellites which are approximately 35,000km from the Earth’s surface.

That means Starlink can deliver download bandwidth in the hundreds of megabytes and, crucially, latency right down into the tens of milliseconds, rather than the half-second or more that geostationary satellites suffer from. This makes applications such as online gaming and video conferencing are practical from satellite broadband for the first time. It’s also much faster than air-to-ground systems that are used when planes are over land.

However, hundreds or even tens of passengers attempting to stream or download content simultaneously could still put strain on Starlink’s in-flight Wi-Fi. The Starlink for Aviation website claims that each terminal can offer 40-220Mbits/sec of download speed, and between 8-25Mbits/sec of upload speed. That’s roughly equivalent to a low-grade domestic fibre broadband connection.

The available bandwidth will vary depending on satellite coverage and proximity to ground base stations in the aircraft’s current location. But with 4K video stream typically requiring 15Mbits/sec or more, airlines might need to find ways to ration the amount of bandwidth available to each passenger to ensure everyone gets a reliable service.

SpaceX has designed special antennas that are mounted on the fuselage of planes to connect with its fleet of satellites. These won FAA approval in 2022, and the company has already rolled them out in the private business jet market.

The Qatar Airways deal signals the start of Starlink becoming more widespread in commercial passenger jets. Air France has also announced plans to roll out Starlink across its fleet, with the first services expected to come online next year.