Delta Air Lines is falling behind in inflight wifi. Their current ViaSat product (available on most aircraft) works fine but now that it’s free, it gets a lot more use and can struggle at times. American Airlines suffers from the same problem.
In contrast, United Airlines is installing Starlink wifi. So is Alaska. That’s the fastest wifi in the sky, it has basically no latency, and works better than what most passengers experience at home.
To address this, Delta followed JetBlue and selected Amazon’s wifi as a replacement.
But they’re not getting started until 2028, and only equpping about half their fleet with the service. They will remain behind the competition for a long time. And Amazon’s technology isn’t real yet, so we won’t know for some time how it actually compares.
The world is rapidly adopting Starlink as a standard. It’s being rolled out by IAG airlines (e.g. Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia); Lufthansa Group airlines (e.g. Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, ITA Airways); Hanjin Group carriers (Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jin Air, Air Busan, Air Seoul); airBaltic, Air France, Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines; Emirates; flydubai; Gulf Air; Qatar Airways; SAS; Virgin Atlantic; Southwest Airlines; WestJet; ZIPAIR. JSX was actually first.
American Airlines, even, is expected to pick between Starlink and Amazon. You can get a good deal on Amazon!
- Amazon gets a marquis customer and market legitimacy
- They can do Amazon studios content through inflight entertainment
- And Amazon can discount cloud computing as part of a deal
But that’s not why Delta decided to forego the attractive Starlink system that’s available now. Early Tesla, SpaceX and xAI investor Ron Baron who went on CNBC to talk about the upcoming SpaceX IPO explained what happened.
I saw him on this morning but missed the interview, however Cory Garner flagged that,
the Starlink deal with Delta Air Lines fell through because Delta insisted Starlink access would sit behind Delta’s branded portal/offering.
This wasn’t about gatekeeping the system. United requires MileagePlus credentials to access free wifi and Delta could have done the same.
Delta is buying wifi capability, and offering ‘Delta Sync’ to customers – not Starlink or Amazon Leo. Starlink is… Starlink, and frankly it’s what passengers who care enough to make decisions based on wifi know as the difference-maker. They were apparently at an impasse.
Now, United’s timetable has them finishing their full fleet with Starlink before Delta even begins to equip half their fleet with its competitor.
No airline in the world cares about and promotes its brand – beyond the reality of its product – more than Delta Air Lines. Was slowing down rollout of quality wifi to passengers worth the tradeoff?
I bought a Starlink receiver for my remote ranch property in northern BC Canada where even Cell service is unavailable because I needed connectivity while on vacation there last summer (a big part of why I love going there is to escape the phone and internet) and it works incredibly well, super fast and with very little latency. In my mind, Delta is just being stupid and will get left in the dust by United and most the other carriers. I fly Delta multiple times a month from LA to Atlanta and back, the connectivity is spotty and inconsistent, usually ok for email and text, but no streaming… Starlink on the other hand says “No streaming on your flight? Hold my beer and stand back” It works amazingly well and folks will come to expect it.
TBH no one I know picks their airline based on who provides their WiFi and I work in high tech finance.