Super fast Internet is rolling out quickly on Qatar
I have to be honest: when Qatar had a test flight last year with Starlink connectivity, I thought it was a nice PR stunt. Their CEO made a video call to Elon Musk while the plane was in flight. The reality was that they were fully committed to this project, and the rollout has gone so quickly that they have twice beaten their own timelines on the rollout.
80% of Qatar’s 777s now have Starlink installed.
Qatar have announced that they will soon have their entire 777 fleet hooked up with Starlink. That’s 64 planes from a standing start in October 2024.
Even more impressive is that Qatar will be offering access to Starlink for free.
What Qatar planes will get Starlink next?
Next up is the A350. Qatar has 58 of those in the 900 and 1000 variants. Assuming they retrofit them at the same speed as the 777, they should be complete by the end of 2025.
Why is Starlink so impressive?
The proliferation of Internet connectivity on flights means that you’re very likely to find a Wifi connection on your flight. The challenge for flyers is the speed. I’ve had some shockingly slow wifi on Qatar flights, as well as some other airlines.
Qatar are claiming that the speeds will be up to 500 megabits per second. That’s faster than most people would get on a 5G device wandering around a city, and enough bandwidth for for streaming video which is the holy grail for consumers.
The reality will be a little slower. One test showed that you can get around 150Mbps on downloads and 25Mbps on upload, that is still a fantastic speed and it would support streaming.
There’s no doubt that Starlink is a game-changer when it comes to connectivity on planes.
Beyond the A350, what planes will be next?
After the 777 and the A350 have been fully retrofitted, there’s still a lot of the Qatar fleet left.
On the long-haul side of the fleet there’s ten A330s and eight A380s. The latter fell out of favour with Qatar during the pandemic, but they’ve been brought back into service and there’s a good chance they will end up with Starlink, if it’s technically possible on that plane.
There’s also sixty 777-9’s on order, and due for delivery starting in 2026. It’s possible that these could either be fitted with Starlink before they take delivery, or just before the enter service.
Finally, there are fifty-one 787s in the fleet, with a further ten on order. My money is on the 787s, as they will find efficiencies in working through a larger batch of planes.
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