Picture this: I’m hovering 35,000 ft above the bottom, flying via the clouds – and I’ve obtained the digital world at my fingertips as if I have been on the bottom. I’m streaming the newest Conan bit on YouTube on my iPad, leaping right into a Fortnite match on my iPhone, listening to Spotify within the background, and even knocking out some work on my laptop computer.
Sounds unimaginable, proper? After all, in-flight Wi-Fi is infamous for being gradual, spotty, and unpredictable – various from airline to airline, and even from aircraft to aircraft. But United Airlines is attempting to alter that. Thanks to its partnership with Starlink for its next-generation Wi-Fi product, it’s rolling out a lot sooner Wi-Fi without charge throughout its complete fleet.
The course of began again in May 2025, when United started putting in new antennas and Wi-Fi entry factors on its regional jets – dubbed United Express. About 170 of these planes are already outfitted.
But this week marked a giant milestone: United debuted Starlink on its first mainline jet, a Boeing 737-800. I obtained to expertise it firsthand on a take a look at flight on October 14, 2025. The flight departed from and returned to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport – and the following day, that very same jet entered common service for passengers.
To put it simply, the connection was fantastic – on par with my home internet and, at times, even faster. More importantly, it solved some of the biggest frustrations with in-flight Wi-Fi. No more worrying about dead zones, unavailable networks, or sluggish speeds. The service was consistent, quick, easy to connect to, and worked seamlessly across multiple devices.
Oh, and the best part? It’s completely free for United MileagePlus members – a loyalty program that’s free to join. So let’s walk through United’s Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi experience, which actually begins before the main cabin door closes.
United designed this next generation of Wi-Fi to be gate-to-gate, meaning that even if you’re sitting at the gate and then taxiing, you won’t be disconnected, even with airplane mode engaged. I started by flipping my iPhone 17 Pro Max into airplane mode and connecting to the United Wi-Fi community.
One word: when you’ve got iCloud Private Relay, it’s finest to show it off when utilizing in-flight Wi–Fi, as a number of United Airlines engineers prompt, since it could trigger the connection to fail or decelerate.
After this, faucet the Wi-Fi community, then choose “Open Portal Page,” or it’ll seem mechanically. You’ll see United’s new branding for the product – “Break the Wi-Fi Barrier” is the catchphrase – and a button to “Get Started.” From there, it’ll open the United app if it’s put in in your telephone after which convey up the connection web page. Here, you’ll scroll via three pages of fast information on the service, together with three guidelines.
Those are:
- ‘Voice and video calls are prohibited by federal law’
- ‘Enjoy audio, video, online gaming and live event content while using headphones’
- ‘If others could find what you’re viewing offensive, please choose something else to stream’
Pretty common sense ones, in keeping with what you’re already purported to or not purported to be doing on in-flight Wi-Fi. Then it’ll ask you in the event you’re prepared to attach together with your title showing – it’ll pull this out of your United MileagePlus account – click on join, and you then’ll watch a 15-second commercial.
That’s a lot less complicated than United’s present setup, which additionally includes connecting to United WiFi, however then by yourself, you must navigate to ‘unitedwifi.com’ choose an choice for both texting (which is free) or full web (which is $8), after which undergo a a lot slower course of. I’ll additionally point out that, because it’s ViaSat, it’s a lot, a lot, a lot slower and wasn’t even engaged on my flight to this occasion.
Back to Starlink, although, after that, you’re linked and may put together to essentially use your machine as regular. I may stream TikToks and YouTube movies, browse mail and reply, ship texts, and even add pictures or movies to a social community. I additionally ran a pace take a look at and obtained some actually spectacular numbers … even when barreling down a runway to take off.
I performed a Speed Test utilizing Ookla proper after connecting and hit a powerful 461 Mbps down and 43.6 Mbps up, which is sort of on par with my residence Wi-Fi and sooner than a few of my colleagues’ and pals’ networks. While taking off, I hit 360Mbps down and 44.6Mbps up – slower, however means sooner than regular in-flight Wi-Fi, which doesn’t even work till you’re at 10,000 ft.
Mara Palcisco, United’s Vice President of Engineering & Reliability, advised me that this Boeing 737-800 was outfitted with two Starlink antennas on the highest of the plane close to the entrance, which doubles the variety of antennas on United Express planes and signifies that extra people might be linked.
“The wireless access points scale with the aircraft, and we have wireless access points that the pilots can access on the flight deck,” defined Palcisco. The latter differs from United’s present setup, permitting pilots to make use of the corporate’s distributed iPads to entry further instruments in-flight, equivalent to extra detailed climate forecasts. This could possibly be particularly helpful for across-the-Atlantic jaunts or when flying over areas just like the rainforest.
The two fundamental antennas additionally join to numerous Wi-Fi entry factors contained in the cabin, which is the community to which passenger gadgets join. It’s evenly distributed all through the cabin, and United examined it fairly completely, together with with warmth mapping.
It’s additionally designed for one passenger to attach a couple of machine – I went via the identical steps on two different telephones, an iPad, and my MacBook Pro, and all went with no hitch.
I did attempt to join a Nintendo Switch 2, however hit a snag there – the built-in mini browser on the console couldn’t totally load the pages wanted to attach. I’d see the ‘Let’s Get Started’ portion, after which it might error out. United did see this in motion, although, and is engaged on a repair. Other passengers on this take a look at flight efficiently linked a Lenovo Legion Go with no points, although, and I didn’t have any points with my different take a look at gadgets.
And even with upwards of 5 gadgets linked all at my seat, I didn’t see any degradation in pace or connectivity. That additionally goes for transferring across the cabin. And when you nor I’d be capable of conduct a video name, I did make three FaceTime calls on this take a look at flight with earbuds in – all of them went just about flawlessly.
I referred to as my buddy Ellen, whom you’ll be able to see within the screenshot above, and my dad and mom twice. While my audio was at instances just a little muffled on their finish, it is likely to be that the microphones on AirPods Pro 3 have been balancing sound degree for basic airplane noise and by chance chopping my voice out, or I used to be speaking softly, it did certainly work.
And that’s the principle gist right here, just like what Grant Milstead, United’s Vice President of Digital Technology, told me earlier this year – that it’s “enabling the living room in the sky experience.” This United flight outfitted with Starlink felt just about like I used to be utilizing gadgets on the bottom. I didn’t have to fret about finishing a piece process or about being disconnected from the world.
I may take heed to a brand new playlist Spotify churned out, watch a YouTube video I didn’t obtain, and reply to messages in actual time. No extra awkward load instances or failed hundreds. Even having the ability to stream titles from Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, or Netflix all labored right here.
All this, plus the truth that it’s free, far more steady, and that it helps multi-device connections, makes this an actual triple menace. And United is concentrated on getting this expertise out to its entire fleet, but it surely’s going to take a while.
Regarding its mainline plane – equivalent to this 737-800, in addition to the 757, 767, 777, 787, and Airbus fashions – Mara Palcisco shared, “We’re starting slow to go fast so we can perfect the installation, and from there we plan to go pretty fast.” United is beginning with the 737-800 and estimates it could set up it on 15 of those jets a month.
And Palcisco did share some perception into the set up course of on these greater, mainline jets: “We’re going to start the installs by leaving the ray-dome on and installing the Starlink system. We deactivate the current system, install the Starlink, and at the next base-check, we’ll take the ray-dome off.”
The cause for the cut up is that Starlink installations will be accomplished in a number of days, whereas eradicating the previous antenna is a little more of a course of. A base verify can be an extended pull from service.
And Starlink, right here, identical to at residence, works by connecting to low-earth-orbiting satellites about 350 miles above the Earth. That’s in comparison with the older satellites, that are 22,000 miles above the Earth. A Starlink connection will be despatched 70 instances forwards and backwards in only one beam, in comparison with the older fashions. That’s form of nuts, and due to these connection varieties, you gained’t discover an interruption as you progress from satellite tv for pc to satellite tv for pc, and it could go way more simply via storms or heavy climate.
So you’ll be able to anticipate it to start increasing on these mainline jets as we march in direction of 2026, and will probably be on 300 regional jets by the tip of 2025 – it’s presently on 170 United Express regional jets.
It was a terrific expertise, and one which I can’t wait to make use of once more. Between not having working Wi-Fi on my preliminary United flight and it being fairly gradual on the flight residence, the Starlink-equipped Boeing 737-800 was fairly the deal with and units a brand new baseline for in-flight Wi-Fi.
Lastly, whereas this was not a full flight, in that each seat was not stuffed, every passenger introduced a number of gadgets. At the very least, we weren’t making it simple for the system. Suffice to say, I don’t anticipate there to be main variations versus a full flight when it comes to connectivity.
Milstead strengthened that Starlink was the fitting accomplice to match United’s measurement and its fleet, “At any given point, we have the size of a small city on the ground, so we need a lot of size and scale to support our global network, especially in our hubs, of how many passengers are going to be accessing the network.” He famous that the scale of low-earth orbiting satellites within the Starlink community and the protection they supply have been key.
For now, it’s a little bit of luck to be on a United flight with Starlink enabled, however in the event you do, you’ll get a style of the long run and be crossing your fingers each time you fly once more to get it. And your pockets might be fairly pleased as effectively.
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