A major US carrier has announced that every aircraft on its fleet flying to Australia will offer free in-flight Wi-Fi within the month – and it’s not using Elon Musk’s Starlink services to keep passengers connected.
Access to fast internet while flying is emerging as a must-have for passengers, particularly on long-haul flights that keep them in the air for stretches of 10 or more hours, and US-based Delta Air Lines is rolling out fast, free Wi-Fi across its trans-Pacific fleet serving Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“We got our final approval from the FCC (US Federal Communications Commission) last week and almost immediately following, we started to roll it out in the Pacific,” Jeff Moomaw, Delta’s vice president Asia Pacific, told this masthead.
Delta flies daily to Sydney year-round, three times a week to Melbourne, increasing to daily by December for peak season. Flights to Brisbane resume at the end of October for three days a week until March 2027.
“The two markets that were the first to have the coverage were Melbourne and Sydney, and over the next three weeks all of our Pacific flying will have the Wi-Fi,” Moomaw said.
Unlike its major US rivals, United, American and Southwest, Delta won’t be using Elon Musk’s Starlink, but its own Delta Sync Wi-Fi, supported by US telco T-Mobile.
Delta’s decision to decline using Starlink sparked a feud with Musk. At the time, he posted on X that the reason Delta declined was because “SpaceX requires that there be no annoying [airline] ‘portal’ to use Starlink”.
Reports have emerged that Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the airline had tested Starlink but didn’t want to proceed with the service.
Bastian reportedly told staff: “We do not want to be with Elon Musk. Trust me.”
Musk responded that Bastian “will lose his job over” his “no” to Starlink.
Download speeds for Starlink range from 25 to 220+ megabits per second, with users sometimes getting more than 100 Mbps: that’s fast enough for movie streaming, gaming, and videoconferencing.
Delta’s Moomaw said the airline’s “no thanks” to Starlink was not driven by a CEO personality clash but rather because of the importance of Wi-Fi to the airline’s DeltaSync ecosystem, which includes in-flight entertainment, connectivity with the app, and new AI functionality.
A 2023 review of Delta Sync put its average download speeds at about 7 Megabits per second with upload rates of 1.3 Mbps – stable but “absolutely unusable for videoconferencing with Zoom and the like”.
Delta is planning to upgrade to high-speed Wi-Fi using Amazon’s LEO on 500 of its aircraft, but it won’t be available until 2028.
Crucially for the airline, LEO can be incorporated into its in-flight entertainment and app ecosystem, and potentially other products, ensuring that Delta maintains its direct relationship with its passengers.
“The difference is we keep it in the ecosystem, which folks like, and that’s why we went with Amazon, because we feel like it’s going to be a better contributor to that ecosystem than just a Wi-Fi provider on its own,” Moomaw said.
Delta’s profitability hinges on premium business and of the four major US airlines, it is the most profitable, helped by its loyalty program partnership with American Express.
The airline has flagged a full-year profit outlook of $US4.5 billion ($6.4 billion), helped by 20 per cent in premium and loyalty revenue growth. Net income in 2025 was $US5.01 billion.
Moomaw says the aviation industry needs to think through its rush to make Musk’s Starlink a standalone supplier of superfast Wi-Fi.
Delta was among the first airlines to announce fast, free Wi-Fi.
“A lot of airlines since then are playing catch-up,” says Moomaw. “And I think one of the easiest ways to do that is that you add a product here or there that’s a bolt-on.”
And that’s how Starlink is acting for airlines. “But it disconnects from the customer and the ecosystem,” Moomaw says.
While the hype around Starlink is growing, reluctance to adopt the Musk model may explain why Qantas, which is famous for long-haul, trans-oceanic travel, is not clamouring for Starlink. Its in-flight Wi-Fi currently relies on satellite services provided by companies such as Viasat. It may be following a similar strategy to Delta, making sure it gets to control how its customers access Wi-Fi on its flights.
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