British Airways to Supply Free In-flight WiFi by Starlink Broadband Satellites

Good news if you fly British Airways. The associated International Airlines Group (IAG), which also includes Aer Lingus, Iberia, LEVEL and Vueling aircraft, has reached an agreement with SpaceX’s global Starlink service to upgrade 500+ of their planes (long and short-haul) to harness the ultrafast broadband constellation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for in-flight WiFi.

At present if you fly BA, as well as some of IAG’s other aircraft, then on many routes (especially longer haul) you’re likely to get in-flight WiFi via GoGo’s 2Ku based satellite solution, which shares capacity of around 50-100Mbps across all cabins from satellites in a higher (GEO) orbit. We’ve actually tested this a number of times and found it worked reasonably well (here and here), albeit obviously not particularly fast (speeds of 0.5Mbps to 6Mbps and 650-800ms+ latency times).

The new Starlink-based connectivity is likely to be several times faster than the old service and will deliver significantly faster latency times. This should make the onboard experience much more akin to a reasonable hotel WiFi connection on the ground, or possibly even better if the onboard capacity doesn’t get too saturated.

The first aircraft due to go live with this upgraded service will surface during “early” 2026 and British Airways has separately signalled that their “super-fast” WiFi will give everybody onboard “free access to the service for streaming, working and keeping in touch.” At this stage it’s unclear if they will also maintain a premium (paid) service for those wanting faster speeds etc.

Sean Doyle, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO, said:

“We’re continuing to focus on transforming our customer experience. Launching Starlink on both our long-haul and short-haul aircraft is game-changing for us and our customers, elevating their experience on board our flights by offering them seamless connectivity from gate-to-gate. Especially on short-haul, this will really differentiate us from our competitors.

With our new Wi-Fi powered by Starlink, our customers will be able to enjoy lightning-fast, low-lag internet from the moment they board to the moment they land - even over oceans and remote regions. It’s Wi-Fi that feels like home, even at 38,000 feet.”

Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG, said:

“Staying connected in the skies is increasingly important to our airlines’ customers. The introduction of high-speed wi-fi from Starlink will transform onboard connectivity, improving both the connection speed and reliability for customers.

Customers from all IAG airlines will be able to benefit from the service from next year. This demonstrates how IAG is working together as a group, to drive innovation and secure major deals to benefit all our stakeholders.”

At the time of writing we don’t know exactly how much data capacity the new system will be sharing between travellers. But you should probably expect the connection speeds to be a little slower than Starlink’s domestic consumer broadband packages in the UK.

Once rolled out, Starlink will be available on all BA mainline and Euroflyer flights, although the deployment itself will be very gradual as such changes are often installed at the same time as general refit and maintenance periods.

Starlink currently has almost 8,900 satellites in orbit (c.5,300 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £75 a month, plus £299 for hardware (currently free for most areas) on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers) directly from Starlink, which promises UK latency times of 26-33ms, downloads of 116-277Mbps and uploads of 17-32Mbps.