On Tuesday, Qatar Airways was the latest airline to introduce Starlink Wi-Fi to its customers. The flight from Doha to London was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER, and is the first of three T7s to be equipped with the new satellite-based internet service by the end of 2024.
To demonstrate the service, Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Officer Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer video-called Elon Musk from 35,000 feet to show how fast and reliable the service was.
In a release, Mohammed Al Meer said:
“We are thrilled to launch our first Starlink-equipped flight, proving once again why Qatar Airways is at the forefront of the aviation industry.
“This milestone, paired with our commitment to rapidly roll-out Starlink across our entire modern fleet, demonstrates our relentless pursuit of offering passengers an in-flight experience that transcends the constraints of traditional air travel.
“By providing Starlink reliable, seamless internet on board, we are connecting people to the things they love the most even at 35,000 feet, making every journey with us a memorable one.”
As mentioned before, the airline will outfit three Boeing 777s with Starlink Wi-Fi before the end of 2024, and plans to offer the service on its entire 777 fleet by the end of 2025. They will them move on to outfitting its A350s with the same service from mid-2025.
Qatar will offer this as a complimentary feature to all its passengers on board equipped aircraft, allowing travelers to potentially experience download speeds up to 500 Mbps. In reality, those numbers may vary and Simple Flying’s real-world numbers hovered closer to 150 Mbps.
Even though 150 falls well short of the upper expectation of 500 Mbps, it sure is much faster than what is offered by the competitors. Starlink’s low earth orbit also means lower latency speeds. For instance, the test resulted a ping of 259ms, well below the average 600+ ms range experienced when using other higher-orbit geostationary-based satellite providers.
Qatar joins a number of other carriers to adopt Starlink technology including Hawaiian, JSX, Air New Zealand, United, WestJet, Zipair and airBaltic. With no further public roadmap plans, it would be interesting to see if they slowly transition its other Inmarsat and OnAir-outfitted aircraft to Starlink given the higher bandwidth and lower latency.
Even though I’m in full support of Starlink, my only fear is that the higher internet speeds may bring rise to those who scroll TikTok with their phone at full volume, or those who plan to host their Zoom meetings from the air while others around them try to get some sleep. It wouldn’t surprise me if airlines implement new policies at some point in the future to keep noise levels under control.