The rollout of free ultra-fast Starlink Wi-Fi across the British Airways fleet has ground to an embarrassing halt as the airline grapples with continuing fleet reliability issues that are resulting in last-minute cancellations due to a lack of available aircraft.
British Airways became the first UK-based airline to launch Starlink internet on March 19, bringing low-latency, broadband-quality Wi-Fi for free for everyone on board for the first time.
At the time, British Airways had equipped just one Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with Starlink, one of 12 Boeing 787-8 airplanes in the BA fleet that had never had Wi-Fi installed, despite being in service for up to 12 years.
The plan was to quickly equip these 12 Boeing 787-8s with Starlink before engineers moved onto the Boeing 787-9, some of which have never been fitted out with Wi-Fi either.
In the last nine weeks, British Airways has managed to install Starlink on just five Boeing 787-8 aircraft with the registrations: ZBJA, ZBJI, ZBJJ, ZBJK, and ZBJM.
The first five were retrofitted with the Starlink pretty quickly, but since then, the rollout has slowed to a snail’s pace.
From a technical standpoint, there should be no reason why the rollout is taking so long. At United Airlines, Starlink reports that the average installation time for its Wi-Fi kit is taking engineers just eight hours to complete – around 10 times faster than traditional in-flight Wi-Fi solutions.
Other airlines, including Qatar Airways, have also praised the Starlink installation time, managing to roll out the equipment on dozens of aircraft in the same time frame it has taken British Airways to equip just five airplanes.
Admittedly, you would expect the first few aircraft to take longer as engineers learn the ropes and processes are refined, but something else appears to be happening in the case of British Airways.
It’s long been known that BA has suffered from fleet reliability issues, especially in the context of its ambitious schedule. The airline doesn’t have spare aircraft just lying around, and some Boeing 787s have been grounded for months on end due to Rolls-Royce engine issues.
Even with the suspension of some flights to the Middle East, British Airways seems to be struggling to avoid last-minute cancellations due to technical faults that can’t be quickly fixed.
And going into the busy Summer season, the situation isn’t likely to ease off, especially once its Airbus A380s start going into the hangar for nose-to-tail refurbishments later this year.
Officially, British Airways hopes to have completed the installation of Starlink across more than 300 aircraft by March 2028. If, however, BA stays at the current rate of Starlink installations, it will only have equipped 58 aircraft by its own deadline: Just 20% of its fleet.
The problem facing British Airways isn’t supply chain issues that were responsible for seriously delaying the retirement of its old and much-derided Club World business class seats. Starlink has the kit available to install.
Rather, the delay is down to British Airways being unable to find the hangar time to carry out the necessary installation work.
