United Airlines Starlink WiFi

United Airlines holds the largest Starlink Aviation deployment of any carrier in the world, with more than 400 aircraft equipped from a mainline-and-regional fleet of roughly 900. The carrier announced its partnership with SpaceX in September 2024, framing Starlink as a full replacement for its older Viasat and Gogo connectivity, and began customer-facing installations across the regional fleet within months. Today the rollout is well past the halfway mark on regional jets and steadily moving through the mainline narrow-bodies. The progression is most visible on the Embraer E175 (E75L) — 199 of 247 airframes now carry Starlink, an 81% coverage rate — and on the Bombardier CRJ-700 family, where 77 of 87 jets are equipped. Mainline coverage is earlier in the curve: Boeing 737-800s sit at 30 of 141, 737-900s at 24 of 148, and the Boeing 787-9 long-haul fleet is just beginning at 8 of 52. United has not committed to a public completion date, but the installation pace seen across 2025 and into mid-2026 puts a full mainline conversion on track for 2027. For passengers, the practical implication is that connectivity is now genuinely consistent on regional United Express routes and increasingly common on domestic narrow-body services. Starlink is offered free of charge on every equipped aircraft, in every cabin — economy, Economy Plus, Polaris business and United First share the same connection — with no MileagePlus tier or fare-class gating. Reported speeds typically sit in the 30 to 100 Mbps range per device, enough for video calls, streaming and remote work without the buffering that defined earlier in-flight WiFi. The Starlink antenna is identifiable on the upper fuselage as a flat white rectangular panel, distinct from the older bulbous radomes used by legacy systems.