Picture this: I’m soaring 35,000 feet above the ground, flying through the clouds – and I’ve got the digital world at my fingertips as if I were on the ground. I’m streaming the latest Conan bit on YouTube on my iPad, jumping into a Fortnite match on my iPhone, listening to Spotify in the background, and even knocking out some work on my laptop.
Sounds impossible, right? After all, in-flight Wi-Fi is notorious for being slow, spotty, and unpredictable – varying from airline to airline, and even from plane to plane. But United Airlines is trying to change that. Thanks to its partnership with Starlink for its next-generation Wi-Fi product, it’s rolling out much faster Wi-Fi at no cost across its entire fleet.
The process started back in May 2025, when United began installing new antennas and Wi-Fi access points on its regional jets – dubbed United Express. About 170 of those planes are already equipped.
But this week marked a big milestone: United debuted Starlink on its first mainline jet, a Boeing 737-800. I got to experience it firsthand on a test flight on October 14, 2025. The flight departed from and returned to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport – and the next day, that same jet entered regular 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 network.
One note: if you have iCloud Private Relay, it’s best to turn it off when using in-flight Wi–Fi, as it can fail or slow down the connection. A few engineers from United Airlines also suggested doing this.
After this, tap the Wi-Fi network, then select “Open Portal Page,” or it will appear automatically. 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 installed on your phone and then bring up the connection page. Here, you’ll scroll through three pages of quick info on the service, including three rules.
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 line with what you’re already supposed to or not supposed to be doing on in-flight Wi-Fi. Then it will ask you if you’re ready to connect with your name appearing – it’ll pull this from your United MileagePlus account – click connect, and then you’ll watch a 15-second advertisement.
That’s much simpler than United’s current setup, which also involves connecting to United WiFi, but then on your own, you need to navigate to ‘unitedwifi.com’ select an option for either texting (which is free) or full internet (which is $8), and then go through a much slower process. I’ll also mention that, since it’s ViaSat, it’s much, much, much slower and wasn’t even working on my flight to this event.
Back to Starlink, though, after that, you’re connected and can prepare to really use your device as normal. I could stream TikToks and YouTube videos, browse mail and respond, send texts, and even upload images or videos to a social network. I also ran a speed test and got some really impressive numbers … even when barreling down a runway to take off.
I conducted a Speed Test using Ookla right after connecting and hit an impressive 461 Mbps down and 43.6 Mbps up, which is nearly on par with my home Wi-Fi and faster than some of my colleagues’ and friends’ networks. While taking off, I hit 360Mbps down and 44.6Mbps up – slower, but way faster than normal in-flight Wi-Fi, which doesn’t even work until you’re at 10,000 feet.
Mara Palcisco, United’s Vice President of Engineering & Reliability, told me that this Boeing 737-800 was outfitted with two Starlink antennas on the top of the aircraft near the front, which doubles the number of antennas on United Express planes and indicates that more folks will be connected.
“The wireless access points scale with the aircraft, and we have wireless access points that the pilots can access on the flight deck,” explained Palcisco. The latter differs from United’s current setup, allowing pilots to use the company’s distributed iPads to access additional tools in-flight, such as more detailed weather forecasts. This could be especially useful for across-the-Atlantic jaunts or when flying over areas like the rainforest.
The two main antennas also connect to various Wi-Fi access points inside the cabin, which is the network to which passenger devices connect. It’s evenly distributed throughout the cabin, and United tested it pretty thoroughly, including with heat mapping.
It’s also designed for one passenger to connect more than one device – I went through the same steps on two other phones, an iPad, and my MacBook Pro, and all went without a hitch.
I did try to connect a Nintendo Switch 2, but hit a snag there – the built-in mini browser on the console couldn’t fully load the pages needed to connect. I’d see the ‘Let’s Get Started’ portion, and then it would error out. United did see this in action, though, and is working on a fix. Other passengers on this test flight successfully connected a Lenovo Legion Go with no issues, though, and I didn’t have any issues with my other test devices.
And even with upwards of five devices connected all at my seat, I didn’t see any degradation in speed or connectivity. That also goes for moving around the cabin. And while you nor I would be able to conduct a video call, I did make three FaceTime calls on this test flight with earbuds in – they all went pretty much flawlessly.
I called my friend Ellen, whom you can see in the screenshot above, and my parents twice. While my audio was at times a little muffled on their end, it might be that the microphones on AirPods Pro 3 were balancing sound level for general airplane noise and by accident cutting my voice out, or I was talking softly, it did indeed work.
And that’s the main gist here, similar to 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 equipped with Starlink felt pretty much like I was using devices on the ground. I didn’t have to worry about completing a work task or about being disconnected from the world.
I could listen to a new playlist Spotify churned out, watch a YouTube video I didn’t download, and respond to messages in real time. No more awkward load times or failed loads. Even being able to stream titles from Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, or Netflix all worked here.
All this, plus the fact that it’s free, way more stable, and that it supports multi-device connections, makes this a real triple threat. And United is focused on getting this experience out to its whole fleet, but it’s going to take some time.
Regarding its mainline aircraft – such as this 737-800, as well as the 757, 767, 777, 787, and Airbus models – 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 starting with the 737-800 and estimates it can install it on 15 of these jets a month.
And Palcisco did share some insight into the install process on these bigger, 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 reason for the split is that Starlink installations can be completed in a few days, while removing the old antenna is a bit more of a process. A base check is also a longer pull from service.
And Starlink, here, just like at home, works by connecting to low-earth-orbiting satellites about 350 miles above the Earth. That’s compared to the older satellites, which are 22,000 miles above the Earth. A Starlink connection can be sent 70 times back and forth in just one beam, compared to the older models. That’s kind of nuts, and thanks to these connection types, you won’t notice an interruption as you move from satellite to satellite, and it can go much more easily through storms or heavy weather.
So you can expect it to begin expanding on these mainline jets as we march towards 2026, and it will be on 300 regional jets by the end of 2025 – it’s currently on 170 United Express regional jets.
It was a terrific experience, and one that I cannot wait to use again. Between not having working Wi-Fi on my initial United flight and it being quite slow on the flight home, the Starlink-equipped Boeing 737-800 was quite the treat and sets a new baseline for in-flight Wi-Fi.
Lastly, while this was not a full flight, in that every seat was not filled, each passenger brought multiple devices. At the very least, we weren’t making it easy for the system. Suffice to say, I don’t expect there to be major differences versus a full flight in terms of connectivity.
Milstead reinforced that Starlink was the right partner to match United’s size 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 noted that the size of low-earth orbiting satellites in the Starlink network and the coverage they provide were key.
For now, it’s a bit of luck to be on a United flight with Starlink enabled, but if you do, you’ll get a taste of the future and be crossing your fingers every time you fly again to get it. And your wallet will be pretty happy as well.
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jacob.krol@futurenet.com (Jacob Krol)
