Delta is still stubbornly refusing to adopt Starlink.

I've got status with them and have started booking with other airlines b/c it doesn't matter how nice the seats are if you can't get any work done. Most airline revenue comes from business flights, I don't think they realize how important this is to their customer base.

Delta uses Viasat and has been rolling out free wi-fi on more and more of their planes. Is it not usable?

It’s pretty good, but the latency is inherently high since Viasat is in GEO.

~600ms ping times vs ~40ms on Starlink

Starlink failed it's Delta Demo.

The article is online.

Airplanes are one of the places I feel happily disconnected from being online. Never used in-flight WiFi even when my company would have paid for it.

It's probably what the UA CEO was talking about, trying to get competitors to sign contracts with other providers. Viasat was hot stuff for a long time, wouldn't be surprised if there's a noncompete preventing the change.

Delta has had high speed internet for years on their flights. I’m Platinum Medallion

It could just be the ESPN/gym membership/AAA business model. $ from every single passenger is more revenue than $$ from just those who click buy.

> Nobody wants their brand associated with price gouging and half-broken in-flight credit card payment portals

The airlines have no problem with this. T-mobile has no problem with it either.

Nobody had a problem with flip phones that play snake or Blackberry physical keyboards until the iPhone was demonstrated, and then nobody could conceive of ever going back (except in niche cases, e.g. journalists loved those keyboards)

T-Mobile also offers free Wifi on airplanes.

Only if the airplane uses much slower ground based Gogo (?). I use it every now and then when taking the 45 minute flight from ATL to my parents home in South GA