Starlink is coming to Hawaiian Airlines in a bid to try and fix in-flight Wi-Fi

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SpaceX is starting to make deals with airlines to provide its Starlink satellite internet to sky travelers everywhere. It announced a deal on Monday with Hawaiian Airlines, and last week made a similar deal with charter carrier JSX. None of the involved parties shared the financial details of their deals, but both airlines did say they’re planning to offer the in-flight Wi-Fi for free, which is both a semi-miraculous fact and a sign of hope that free Wi-Fi is becoming the industry standard. Delta meanwhile, confirmed last week that it’s running “exploratory” Starlink tests.

In-flight Wi-Fi has been on the minds of Team Starlink for a while. Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink and commercial sales, said last year that the company was building an aviation product, and was “in talks with several of the airlines.” It’s a natural place for the company to focus, really: in-flight Wi-Fi is a billion-dollar market and growing fast, and it’s currently dominated by Viasat and Gogo, two products nobody would accuse of being fast-moving innovators. And maybe best of all for Starlink, there are none of those pesky trees or buildings in the sky to get in the way! In the long run, there might be lots of competition here, including from companies like OneWeb and Amazon, which are also making big bets on satellite internet. But for now, the industry appears ripe for disruption.

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