A Hawaiian Airlines A321 aircraft with Starlink WiFi installed.
Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines is rolling out free Wi-Fi via SpaceX's Starlink aboard commercial flights this week, the companies told CNBC, the first major U.S. airline to offer the satellite service.
“SpaceX has really cracked the code – literally, in terms of technology – to be able to deliver very high quality, wide bandwidth connectivity to an aircraft with global reach,” Peter Ingram, CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, told CNBC.
Hawaiian's plan for free Wi-Fi comes as airlines ramp up their high-speed connectivity offerings. JetBlue Airways offers Wi-Fi on board for free, and last year Delta Airlines launched free in-flight Internet for members of its loyalty program, after years of planning.
Hawaiian has an extensive network of flights over the Pacific Ocean, serving the continental US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, among other destinations, from Hawaii.
Sign up here to receive weekly editions of CNBC's Investing in Space newsletter.
“It really feels like an experience that shouldn't be possible when you get on a commercial airline flight. And you can go online and experience it in a similar, if not better, way than you can experience in your own home,” Chad Gibbs, SpaceX's vice president of Starlink commercial operations, told CNBC.
“Now we have a totally different paradigm, which is that we have incredible amounts of capacity and bandwidth that we can bring to the aircraft,” Gibbs added.
Hawaiian signed an agreement with SpaceX in April 2022 to use the Starlink network, which consists of more than 5,000 satellites in low Earth orbit and has more than 2.3 million customers worldwide. The airline did not previously offer Wi-Fi on board.
A Starlink terminal installed on a Hawaiian Airlines plane.
Hawaiian Airlines
The companies did not disclose the value of the deal or how much it costs to install each of the aviation-specific Starlink terminals on a commercial aircraft.
Ingram emphasized, however, that “the costs of this have decreased relative to early Wi-Fi systems.” He noted that Hawaiian is “actively” installing Starlink terminals, with six completed so far on its Airbus A321 aircraft.
In total, Hawaiian expects to add Starlink to 18 of its A321 aircraft and 24 of its A330 aircraft by the end of this year.
“We think it will really set a whole new standard for conductivity in aircraft,” Ingram said.
The companies originally planned to begin installing Starlink terminals last year, but Ingram said SpaceX needed to launch more next-generation Starlink satellites and receive certification from the Federal Aviation Administration before installation could begin.
SpaceX has been constantly seeking the necessary licenses for a wide variety of aircraft. It has received certification for smaller aircraft, and semi-private charter JSX will begin using the service in late 2022.
“To date, Starlink has been used on more than 30,000 flights, on flights throughout the United States and around the world,” Gibbs said.
In addition to Hawaiian, SpaceX has announced Starlink inflight Wi-Fi deals with Latvia's airBaltic, Japan's Zipair, and Qatar Airways.
The addition of Starlink service comes to Hawaiian shortly after the airline reached an agreement late last year to be acquired by Alaska Airlines in a $1.9 billion deal.
— CNBC's Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.
