American Airlines extends Starlink Wi-Fi roll-out to entire mainline fleet

Oct 8 (Reuters) – American Airlines said on Thursday it now intends to install SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service on its entire primary fleet of over 1,000 aircraft from next year, extending a plan already in place for roughly half of the fleet.

• American Airlines in May had said it plans to install Starlink on more than 500 Airbus aircraft beginning next year

• The roll-out will now include over 530 Boeing aircraft as well

• The Starlink-equipped fleet will use SpaceX’s Performance Aero Terminal, an aircraft-mounted satellite internet antenna system

• The terminal is capable of delivering speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, the airline said

• The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed

• The carrier operates a mainline fleet of more than 1,030 aircraft

• Over 900 are single-aisle planes, and the rest are widebody aircraft

(Reporting by Megavarshini G. Somasundaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)