American Airlines Announces Starlink Wi-Fi On Board
American Airlines Announces Starlink Wi-Fi On Board
American Airlines, a Fort Worth-based carrier, announces a new partnership with Starlink for onboard Wi-Fi across over 500 aircraft. American plans to upgrade its Starlink Wi-Fi on over 500 mainline aircraft. This will likely be all of their Airbus aircraft. This includes A319, A320, and A321 family aircraft. The operation is scheduled to be complete for Q1, 2027. What I don’t understand is why this seems to go to these aircraft but not to their Boeing 737 aircraft, which are the root of their Chicago hub, one of their most competitive markets.
This is still a huge customer experience expansion. The airline has continued to invest in the customer experience following a lag in profitability relative to competitors, but both its long-haul aircraft and the Boeing 737 family should also be upgraded.
Competitionally speaking, this is a big win for American. This falls short of United, which upgraded Starlink across its whole fleet, but it beats Delta, which also only put a Wi-Fi upgrade on some of its fleet and used Amazon instead of Starlink to cut costs. Many airlines have announced. These airlines have already announced Starlink: 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. From a competitive standpoint for global U.S. airlines, American is catching up to United and Delta through increased reliability and customer investment. Delta is slipping due to cost cuts on Starlink, decreased reliability, and the use of older aircraft on long routes, which are starting to show their age. United’s CEO Scott Kirby’s remarks about there being two global airlines, United and Delta, but I would question if American is starting to offer a better experience than Delta and has more strategic partnerships. American has invested and improved so much in the past year.