The rollout of ultra-fast Starlink Wi-Fi across British Airways’ fleet has reportedly been put on hold until the end of October at the earliest because the airline does not have any leeway to keep aircraft on the ground long enough to install the Wi-Fi hardware while still operating its ambitious schedule.
British Airways made headlines in March when it announced that it had become the first UK-based carrier to offer passengers free, ultra-fast Starlink Wi-Fi that all passengers can access via multiple devices.
In the following few weeks, British Airways managed to install the Starlink service on five of its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners before the retrofit program suddenly ground to a halt.
It feels like BA’s intention in starting the rollout was to beat Virgin Atlantic to the punch, although its arch-rival has now installed Starlink on its entire fleet of 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, compared to BA’s five planes with Starlink.
British Airways intends to initially roll out Starlink on its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, as none of these 12 aircraft have ever had Wi-Fi installed since they were introduced into service up to 12 years ago.
The airline will then move onto its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner fleet, as some of these also don’t have any Wi-Fi system installed, before the rollout moves onto other aircraft types, including the Airbus A380 superjumbo.
Aircraft that have never had Wi-Fi installed will, unfortunately, continue flying until British Airways has scheduled routine maintenance for these aircraft.
From a technical standpoint, Starlink installation is significantly faster than legacy Wi-Fi systems. As an example of just how quickly the kit can be installed, United Airlines reports that the average installation time for Starlink is a mere eight hours – around 10x faster than legacy systems.
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.
British Airways needs to install Starlink on more than 300 aircraft, but if it sticks to its current installation rate, the airline will only have completed retrofits of around 20% of its fleet by the March 2028 deadline.
A spokesperson for BA, however, insists that its plan all along was to slow installations through the summer months, coinciding with Starlink installations around planned maintenance. As such, the airline insists that it will meet its deadline.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the airline commented: “We’re proud to be rolling out Starlink Wi-Fi across our fleet and remain on track to complete installation as planned. To avoid cancelling flights and disrupting customers, we have a planned installation programme that aligns Starlink embodiment with scheduled maintenance.”
The issue isn’t due to a lack of Starlink kits but rather finding time in its schedule to complete the retrofit work. Even with the continuing Middle East flight suspensions, the British Airways fleet remains stretched.
British Airways has suffered fleet reliability problems for several years due to ongoing maintenance issues with the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet.
Delays in receiving previously ordered Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners, as well as the years-long Boeing 777X certification delay, mean that BA’s long-haul aircraft fleet is smaller than it had hoped. Of course, the decision to retire its aging Boeing 747-400s at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped the situation either.
And while Virgin Atlantic has now installed Starlink on more aircraft than BA, it is also understood to have paused its own rollout for the rest of the summer period.
