Johanna Jainchill
Hawaiian Airlines' SpaceX Starlink satellite experience has spoiled me for in-flight WiFi.
I tried out the carrier's free Starlink WiFi last week on a flight from San Diego to Maui. The carrier began offering the service on certain planes and routes earlier this year and plans to roll it out to its entire longhaul fleet by next spring. With its launch, Hawaiian is the first large U.S. airline to deploy the Starlink service.
It performed beyond my expectations.
Anyone who flies frequently knows that in-flight WiFi can be slow, glitchy and sometimes just doesn't work. Not Hawaiian's.
Streaming a Netflix movie using Hawaiian Airlines’ SpaceX Starlink satellite Wifi on a flight from San Diego to Maui. Photo Credit: Johanna Jainchill
The first thing I noticed was that the WiFi worked while we were parked on the tarmac at San Diego Airport while everyone was boarding. Many airplanes that I've been on only turn on the WiFi once the plane has taken off.
Hawaiian touts not just that the service is fast and free, but the ease of connecting. And that's exactly what it was: easy, similar to connecting at home. Passengers just need to choose the Starlink Wifi network. Nothing needs to be agreed to, there is no package to choose, no information to input and no need to add a credit card.
And there was almost nothing my son and I couldn't do in-flight that we do at home. Watch Netflix -- check. Play video games on my son's Nintendo Switch -- check. That was in addition to web browsing that included watching some promotional videos for Hawaii excursions that streamed with no problem. We noticed no glitches at all. I was also able to download and upload files as I normally do.
Hawaiian still offers its own in-flight entertainment with movies that passengers can watch on their devices.
It's worth noting that this performance was on an almost-full flight, so I assume there was a high degree of demand. And this flight was entirely over the Pacific Ocean, heading to one of the most geographically remote islands in the world.
Hawaiian's Wifi was especially impressive in comparison with some recent in-flight WiFi experiences I've had. These include a flight to Los Angeles from Newark where the in-flight team apologized for having to restart the system three times and an entire 4-hour domestic flight where the WiFi didn't work at all.
Hawaiian started the free Starlink WiFi on its longhaul fleet, beginning with its Airbus A321neo aircraft, one of which I was on. Next will be its A330s.
Free, high-speed WiFi is a big distinguisher for the carrier, which is the smallest among the 10 primary mainline U.S. carriers, offering a fraction of the routes offered by the bigger airlines.
But those routes go to Hawaii, and are generally long flights where low-latency, high-speed WiFi makes a real difference in the passenger experience.