United Launches Free Gate-to-Gate Starlink Wi-Fi, Starting with Regional Flights

Forget airplane mode. United passengers can now connect to lightning-fast, free in-flight Wi-Fi from gate to gate, thanks to Starlink.

The first United customers to experience the blistering speeds of Starlink won’t be those on prestige transcontinental flights but rather passengers taking a short regional United Express flight from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Detroit (DTW), which took off on May 15.

Photo: Courtesy of United

In the following days, Starlink-enabled United planes will take off from Chicago and head to Nashville (BNA) and Charlottesville (CHO), their passengers streaming video content and browsing the web from 35,000 feet.

While United plans on installing Starlink modems on all 1,026 aircraft in its fleet, the rollout will start with regional jets before moving onto mainline aircraft.

Inaugural Flight

It was aboard an 88-passenger Embraer E-175 that United showed off the service to the press last week. During a brief 90-minute flight, which both took off and landed at O’Hare, United executives served First Class snack boxes and champagne to media as they connected their devices to the in-flight Wi-Fi.

Photo: United Airlines, Embraer E175. Courtesy of Denver International Airport.

By all reports, the connections lived up to the hype. Download speeds were comfortably over 100Mpbs, at times exceeding 200Mbps, and upload speeds stayed over 20Mbps. Latency, or lag, the bane of video callers and gamers, was consistently low.

“This internet is fast. It’s going to feel like nothing you’ve ever experienced in the skies before,” Grant Milstead, United vice president of digital technology, said. “It’s faster than the internet at my house.”

“We’re bringing Wi-Fi from just like your living room to the skies — whether you’re streaming, gaming, shopping, or working,” David Kinzelman, chief customer officer at United, added.

Photo: Courtesy of United Airlines

The Wi-Fi is also available gate to gate rather than only switching on once the aircraft is above 10,000 feet, as has been standard with previous in-flight internet. So passengers won’t be asked to turn their devices to airplane mode. Instead, they’ll be encouraged to hop online and stay online for the whole flight — as long as their laptops remain stowed and tray tables locked during take-off and landing.

How to access United’s Starlink Wi-Fi

If you find yourself aboard a United plane with Starlink, getting online is simple.

First, you’ll be notified via email before the flight that your plane will likely be equipped with Starlink (last-minute changes are, of course, possible). That gives you ample time to sign up for a free MileagePlus account and download the United mobile app if you haven’t already. However, if you forget, you can also complete both tasks from your seats using the in-flight Wi-Fi.

United Airlines App / Photo: Courtesy of United Airlines

Once onboard, select the unitedwifi.com network, and you’ll be redirected to the airline’s mobile app. There, you’ll be asked to confirm that you’re a MileagePlus member and agree to a few basic rules: no voice or video calls, no offensive content, headphones for any audio. After watching a brief ad, you’ll be connected.

QR codes help you easily connect additional devices. United says you can connect as many as you like without seeing speeds suffer.

And the best part? It’s all free. United says it has no immediate plans to start charging for the internet service. But it may monetize it in other ways, through personalized advertising.

“What the Starlink connectivity allows us to do in real-time, because of the latency and the low earth orbit satellite technology… means that we can make some real-time, less than 100-millisecond ad decisions to serve up in a hyper-personalized world,” United MileagePlus CEO Richard Nunn said, as reported in The Verge.

Other airlines using Starlink

While United is the first major U.S. airline to adopt Starlink, it’s hardly alone in the industry.

Hawaiian Airlines became the first commercial operator to switch on the service in February 2024, followed by Qatar Airways, whose first Starlink-enabled flight got airborne last October. AirBaltic brought Starlink to Europe earlier this year, while Air France’s rollout will begin this summer.

Air New Zealand, Canadian carrier WestJet, and Scandinavian airline SAS have all signed deals with Starlink and will launch service over the next couple of years.

Photo: Courtesy of SAS

Why is Starlink, from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, so much better than previous in-flight internet? It uses a dense network of more than 6,000 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, 65 times closer to the ground than conventional geostationary satellites. That means connections with higher speeds and lower latency. The mesh-like network offers more complete flight path coverage and bandwidth, enabling more devices to connect simultaneously.

Starlink is also easy to install on planes. United says it can add the modems to planes during overnight maintenance once it ramps up the rollout. It expects all of its regional planes will be equipped with Starlink by the end of the year.