United Airlines is now bolting Starlink onto about three jets a day, and its CEO isn’t shy about why. Scott Kirby called SpaceX’s in-flight internet “the biggest competitive advantage” in the airline business, and said Delta’s decision to skip it is “a mistake.”
Kirby made the comments on the Cheeky Pint podcast with Stripe co-founder John Collison and analyst Ben Thompson, released Tuesday. The numbers he gave, as TeslaNorth summarized them: Starlink is on 661 United jets, it covers 48% of United flights today and should hit 50% next week, and more than 5.4 million passengers used it in September alone. Full-fleet coverage is the target for the end of 2027.
United’s own tracker update on Oct. 15 counted more than 635 equipped aircraft, so the install line really is moving every day. (We covered an earlier stage of the rollout here.)
From 65% to all-in
The original plan was smaller. “We were only going to do 65% of our fleet, but once we put it on our first aircraft, I got these anecdotes saying, ‘I’m switching to flying regional ’cause it’s got Starlink,'” Kirby said, in a clip Sawyer Merritt posted. “Then I was like, ‘Holy cow, we gotta go all-in.'” When people start picking the smaller plane on purpose, an airline notices.
Los Angeles is set to become United’s first hub with Starlink on every flight in the first half of 2027. The United app will also start showing the odds that your booked flight has it, based on how many aircraft of that type are already done and how many should be finished by your travel date. That’s a feature only a half-finished rollout could invent, and a useful one.
A head start with an expiration date
Kirby was frank that the lead won’t last forever. “Everybody eventually is going to have high-speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have,” he said, per Teslarati. “We are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission.” The bet is that people who try United for the Wi-Fi stay for the app and everything else.
On Delta, which has gone with Amazon’s Leo system instead, he didn’t hedge. “It’s a mistake,” he said in another clip. “I think (Starlink) is the biggest competitive advantage of all time.” American Airlines expects to start its own Starlink work in early 2027, Teslarati reports, and Southwest has been installing it since 2025.
Sources: Cheeky Pint on YouTube, TeslaNorth, Teslarati, Sawyer Merritt on X (2).
— The EVX News team
Featured image: A United Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX departing Boston, June 2025. Photo: 4300streetcar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
