United Airlines is ushering in a new era of travel with the introduction of Starlink satellite internet on its planes. Free, lightning-fast, and working from gate to gate – it’s no longer the future, it’s the reality. Welcome to an era where “airplane mode” is just a nostalgic memory. Starlink – Elon Musk’s company is bringing entertainment to airplanes.
Starlink brings revolution. For many years it has airplane mode on phone meant a sacred digital sanctuary. No Slack pings. No Zoom calls. Just you and that one shameful movie, that you've always wanted to watch but never admitted to. Well, enjoy this freedom while it lasts. United Airlines is with the help of SpaceX Starlinka just reset the rules of the game. Starlink – Elon Musk's company brings entertainment and better internet to airplanes than many people have at home.
Internet in the sky: the wireless revolution conjured up by Elon Musk
United isn’t the first airline to experiment with Starlink—that honor goes to Hawaiian Airlines. But it is the first major U.S. carrier to equip all 1,026 planes in its fleet with the technology. The launch? May 15, 2025, with a flight between Chicago and Detroit. Even the Chicago test flight was a spectacle in itself: CEOs served snacks, influencers live-streamed, and Disney+ and TikTok were playing in the cabin.
128 megabits per second. Over the air. Free.
Yes, you read that right. Average speed data transfer during the flight: 128 Mbps. Upload? 24 Mbps. Latency? Under 20 ms. These are numbers that many home internets can't handle - and they're now available 10,000 meters above the ground. But don't worry: video calls are not allowed. Not because of technical limitations, but because no one wants to listen to your Monday status with the team.
All you need is a free registration
Access to Starlink Wi-Fi is subject to free enrollment in the United loyalty program MileagePlusNo more paying $10 for access or running around for Wi-Fi codes. Just connect, click, and browse. You can even connect multiple devices at once – your laptop, tablet, and mobile phone – without noticing a drop in speed.
Say goodbye
But every technological advance also brings something tragic: the end of excuses. You won't be able to say you were "unreachable in the air." No, now your boss will expect you to respond to Slack even during the flight. Now Zoom calls will be possible even while flying over Nebraska.
United claims that they won't allow video calls and that content will be filtered - but the reality is that the sky will become the new coworking space. With a better view, but with the same feeling of being trapped.
Conclusion: the future flies with us
United and Starlink have joined forces to create something that only a few years ago sounded like science fiction. And as technological advances blur the lines between land and air, we have to ask ourselves: do we really want work to fly with us? All we can say is: welcome to a future where the sky is the limit—especially when it comes to bandwidth.
