Elon Musk’s Starlink is rapidly being adopted by airlines, giving one company, SpaceX, much more sway in the consumer experience of many carriers.
But former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has warned that airlines will need to ensure market competition for satellite-based onboard Wi-Fi in coming years.
“I think everybody would be looking at making sure that you would have some contestability,” Joyce said. “Because there are other people talking about having competitors to Starlink at some stage.”
Joyce said that to prevent Starlink from gaining too much influence over the fragmented airline industry, carriers would need to have the ability to switch satellite-internet services.
“I’m sure, like any market, Starlink seems to be making good money out of this,” he said.
While Amazon is in the process of building up Leo, its rival to Starlink, Joyce suggested Chinese satellite network providers might eventually enter the industry. Starlink is a division of SpaceX.
“I’m sure, like any market, other people will be attracted to it,” Joyce said.
Amazon Leo currently has about 400 satellites in orbit versus more than 10,000 Starlink satellites.
Qantas uses Viasat and the nbn Sky Muster satellite service, providing Wi-Fi primarily over Australia and some international destinations.
Joyce said that for airlines, what is important is having the ability to switch.
“The big cost for the airlines is the technology in the aircraft,” he says.
Aircraft maker Airbus is working on a product called HBCplus that will allow a jet to be connected to multiple satellite networks simultaneously.
The product will cut down the time it takes for an aircraft to be fitted with a satellite-based Wi-Fi system, and allow more than one provider access to the same plane.
Joost van der Heijden, senior vice president of marketing at Airbus, said in June that HBCplus “brings more competition, and allows airlines to benefit from the latest level of connectivity.
“The idea is to provide the best possible connectivity solutions to our airlines to offer to their passengers,” he said.
Joyce believes that in time, as with many technologies, “the Chinese will have a product” in the space of satellite-based Wi-Fi for aviation, too.
“Airlines then will have more choice on it.”
For now, Starlink seems to have an open field with airlines.
The company has signed a major agreement with American Airlines, and has activated its service on a number of new airlines including Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia and Aer Lingus.
In the year to June, United said it flew more than 311,000 flights on Starlink-equipped planes. The airline had more than 500 of its fleet of 1000 planes wired for Starlink, according to the United Starlink tracker website.
Joyce, who set up low-cost carrier Jetstar, led Qantas for 15 years and navigated it through COVID-19 lockdowns (not without controversy), is considered an influential voice in the aviation sector. He was also chairman of the International Air Transport Association board of governors in 2012 and 2013, and is known for speaking out on industry issues.
In a speech last year, Joyce warned that “if airlines don’t own the customer interface in the age of AI, someone else will, and we’ll become just the plumbing behind the platform”.
Starlink’s application to aviation goes beyond in-flight experience. It can accelerate communications across many parts of a plane, including better and faster weather information, and provide high-resolution radar and turbulence overlays directly to electronic flight bags, pilots’ bundle of navigation information and checklists.
Starlink can also enable easier and faster real-time route adjustments based on winds and fuel, making flights more efficient.
In SpaceX’s first quarterly update as a listed company, it revealed subscriptions doubled year on year to 12 million in the second quarter of 2026. Starlink remains the profit engine of SpaceX, which was contacted for comment.
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Chris Zappone is a senior reporter covering aviation and business. He is former digital foreign editor.Connect via X, Facebook or email.From our partners
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