Dubai-based mega carrier Emirates has just become the first airline in the world to deploy ultra-fast broadband-quality Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi on an Airbus A380 superjumbo, expanding the available bandwidth onboard the double-deck aircraft by 2,000 times over.
Rather unusually, Emirates didn’t complete the installation of the Starlink hardware at its main base in Dubai, where the majority of the airline’s engineering work is carried out, but rather, the work was completed in Newquay, on the north coast of Cornwall, in southwest England.
The 13-year-old Airbus A380 (registration: A6-EEA) was ferried to Newquay Airport on April 2, where it presumably underwent a whole plethora of engineering work alongside the Starlink upgrade.
Given the ginormous size of the iconic double-deck aircraft, Emirates will be installing three Starlink antennas on each of its A380s, which will offer more than two gigabits of total aircraft bandwidth across the two decks.
Emirates first announced a deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service in November 2025 during the Dubai Airshow. Rumors of a potential tie-up between Emirates and Starlink first emerged in May 2025, but the airline decided to wait to officially announce the deal until the rollout had already begun.
The initial rollout started on Emirates’ fleet of Boeing 777s, although work on the A380 fleet had to wait until Starlink had secured regulatory certification for its hardware to be installed on the aircraft type.
Emirates had initially planned to start the installation of Starlink on its A380s in February. It’s unclear whether the small delay was the result of certification issues or the war in Iran.
Emirates currently uses the outdated Sita OnAir inflight Wi‑Fi service across the majority of its fleet, which is both slow and unreliable. New Airbus A350s are, however, being fitted with ViaSat Global Xpress in-flight Wi-Fi, which Emirates claims is 10x faster than the internet service on its other airplanes.
At some point, the A350 fleet will also get Starlink installed as part of ambitious plans to install the service across the entire Emirates in-service fleet of 232 aircraft.
Emirates has opted for an enhanced package with Starlink, which not only includes free ultra-fast, low-latency, gate-to-gate Wi-Fi for everyone onboard, but also free live TV streaming.
While the first A380 to have Starlink had to fly empty to Newquay and back, Emirates says it plans to start installations at its Dubai engineering hub in the near future.
Emirates is going head-to-head with Qatar Airways to install Starlink internet across their respective fleets, while regional rival Etihad Airways has opted to stick with a traditional satellite internet provider (for the time being at least).
Starlink should soon face competition from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Leo internet company, which is in the process of deploying its own ‘constellation’ of low-earth orbit satellites, which make worldwide broadband quality internet possible.
Amazon Leo is still in the early stages of sending the thousands of satellites required into orbit, and the Starlink rival has faced a number of frustrating delays.
So far, Amazon Leo has won contracts with JetBlue and Delta Air Lines, while American Airlines is still pitting Starlink and Amazon Leo against one another.
