First Starlink Broadband Equipped British Airways Flight Takes Off with Free WiFi

British Airways has revealed that it’s just become the first airline in the UK to launch the fastest onboard Wi-Fi in the sky, which occurred after their first Starlink equipped flight took to the skies at the end of last week. The flight marks the first of many to harness Elon Musk’s massive constellation of broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The news shouldn’t come as a surprise because the associated International Airlines Group (IAG), which also includes Aer Lingus, Iberia, LEVEL and Vueling aircraft, announced last November 2025 (here) that it had reached an agreement to deploy SpaceX’s global Starlink service to upgrade onboard WiFi on over 500 of their planes (long and short-haul).

Since then BA has been busy fitting Starlink onto its 787-8 fleet. Within the next two years the entire British Airways fleet of more than 300 aircraft will have this new technology, available for all customers, in every cabin, “free of charge“. But it’s still unclear if they will also maintain premium (paid) plans for those wanting a better experience.

The move marks a significant upgrade from BA’s old in-flight WiFi system, which was delivered via GoGo’s 2Ku based satellite solution (this shared capacity of around 50-100Mbps across all cabins from satellites in a higher orbit (GEO)). We’ve previously tested this a number of times and found it worked reasonably well (here and here), albeit not particularly fast (speeds of 0.5Mbps to 6Mbps and 650-800ms+ latency times).

“Customers will be able to seamlessly work, browse, shop and connect from the air on multiple devices on the fastest Wi-Fi in the sky, with download speeds of up to 500+ Mbps,” said the announcement. But oddly this speed claim is based on a study conducted by Ookla last year, although in other places BA does seem to suggest that it may represent the contracted service capacity per flight. In any case, it’ll be a lot faster than the old service.

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

“We’re excited to be the first UK airline to bring this level of connectivity to our customers. We know that staying connected matters to people, whether they’re travelling for work or heading off on holiday, and Starlink will give our customers fast, reliable Wi-Fi that transforms the onboard experience. This milestone is part of a wider investment in elevating every aspect of our customer journey as we continue to modernise our airline.”

The same high-speed service will also be used to enable the airline’s Cabin Crew and Flight Crew to communicate seamlessly in real time with colleagues on the ground. However, despite claiming that Starlink is to be rolled out to the “entire British Airways fleet“, we note that this does in fact exclude the BA Cityflyer service, which operates the Embraer 190 aircraft from London City airport to UK domestic and European routes.

Starlink currently has around 10,100 satellites in orbit – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £35 a month for the ‘Residential 100Mbps’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while more restrictive (data capped) options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £50 per month for 100 GigaBytes of data).