American Airlines Will Switch to Starlink for Now, But Only on Airbus Narrowbodies
The airline joins a growing flock of carriers adopting SpaceX’s broadband, but its longest and shortest flights will continue to rely on other forms of connectivity.
American Airlines Will Switch to Starlink for Now, But Only on Airbus Narrowbodies | PCMag
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Barely five months after rolling out free Wi-Fi on most of its flights, American Airlines revealed plans to bring free and fast Wi-Fi from SpaceX’s Starlink to a subset of its mainline fleet.The carrier’s announcement says it will bring the low-Earth-orbit connectivity to “its fleet of more than 500 Airbus aircraft, including new A321XLR and A321neo deliveries,” starting in Q1 2027.That would bring Starlink to just over 47% of the airline's current mainline fleet, which, as of Q1, showed 132 A319s, 48 A320s, and 304 A321s in various versions, with 15 more Airbus narrowbodies to be delivered by the end of 2026 and 23 in 2027. You May Also Like
The Wi-Fi on AA’s Boeing mainline jets—401 737 narrowbodies plus 67 777 and 70 787 widebodies—will be a mixed bag. All of the 737s and a fraction of the 787-8 subfleet use Intelsat or Viasat systems that support American’s free Wi-Fi, while the remaining widebodies fly with a Panasonic system for which passengers have to pay.The Intelsat, Viasat, and Panasonic kits all rely on satellites in geostationary Earth orbit, which results in speeds and latency much worse than what Starlink delivers from its constellation of 10,000-plus satellites in orbits as low as 300 miles up.A recent report by Ookla, drawing on tests from its Speedtest bandwidth-measurement app across dozens of airlines, found Q4 2025 median inflight Starlink downloads of 223.14Mbps and uploads of 32.31Mbps. Those figures far exceed what that company found from in-flight “GEO” Wi-Fi, especially in uplink rates.American Airlines also counts 572 regional jets in its fleet, some operated by partner carriers; all but 71 small Embraer 145 aircraft are getting an Intelsat system that connects to satellites in geostationary and lower orbits, announced in November 2023.To break down this fleet breakdown in plainer terms: Starlink is not coming to American’s longest flights, and on most of them, you still have to pay for Wi-Fi at rates that can hit $35 a flight.(T-Mobile subscribers used to be able to get at least an hour of free connectivity on American flights, but the wireless carrier no longer lists the air carrier among those covered by this benefit; T-Mobile left subscribers flying United Airlines in the same lurch in April.)AA’s press release doesn’t provide details about how passengers will use Starlink on board. Spokesperson Luisa Barrientos Flores, however, emailed a response thanking SpaceX for enabling a login experience tied to its free AAdvantage frequent-flyer program: “We’ve been very pleased with Starlink’s willingness to work with us on an easy and seamless sign-in process for our AAdvantage members.” That suggests that AA passengers are in store for something roughly like what United passengers now get. On that airline’s Starlink-equipped planes—now, mostly regional jets but projected to encompass its entire fleet by the end of this year—you have to sign in with an account in United’s free MileagePlus program and then watch a short video ad.Earlier this month, however, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk suggested that such a thing was impossible when he denounced Delta Air Lines for signing up with Amazon for connectivity from that tech giant’s upcoming Leo low-Earth-orbit satellite broadband service.“SpaceX requires that there be no annoying ‘portal’ to use Starlink,” Musk griped on X, which could only be true if you interpret “annoying” as generously as possible. Yes, it’s been a long time since Musk flew commercial instead of on his private jet, but almost anybody else at SpaceX could have set him straight about that. Recommended by Our Editors Looking for Fast Wi-Fi on Your Next Flight? Pick an Airline With Starlink I Used a VPN to Find Cheap Flights. Does This Travel Hack Actually Work? Ultra Mobile Makes International Travel Easier With New $5 Roaming Passes
As for why American is making Starlink an Airbus-only proposition, the answer we got suggested this is not the end of the journey for Starlink at American. “Our initial commitment targeted Airbus aircraft for American to achieve consistency within this fleet,” Barrientos Flores wrote. “Today, our Airbus aircraft have a mix of technologies and two different providers (Viasat and SES).” She did not specify when American plans to complete the Airbus rollout or when the airline will retire the payment-requirement Panasonic system on its Boeing widebodies. “We are always evaluating and working with partners to ensure we are delivering a valuable product to our customers," she wrote.Starlink has become a popular connectivity upgrade for airlines worldwide. The list of carriers that have started offering Starlink or signed deals to put it on at least part of a fleet now includes Air France, Alaska Airlines (and its Hawaiian Airlines operation), Emirates, International Airlines Group (the parent firm of British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, among others), Korean Air, Lufthansa Group, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Virgin Atlantic.Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.
About Our Expert Rob Pegoraro Contributor Experience Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs. Latest By Rob Pegoraro Pope Leo XIV: Unchecked AI Development Risks Building a New Tower of Babel SpaceX Starship Hits Some Targets, Misses Others on Latest Test Flight DeepMind CEO: 'AGI' Is Coming Soon, But Here's the Test It Must Pass First T-Mobile Debuts AI-Backed Live Language Translation Beta, No App Needed
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