Qatar Airways Group CEO Badr Al Meer (center) and Qatar Tourism Chairman Saad bin Ali Al Kharji (left) speak with Elon Musk (right) via Starlink on board the flight.
Qatar Airways
Qatar Airways launched Tuesday its inaugural Boeing 777 flight equipped with Elon Musk’s Starlink web, paving the best way for a latest era of in-flight connectivity across its entire fleet by next 12 months.
To exhibit the milestone, Qatar Airways CEO Badr Al Meer held a video call with Starlink founder Musk while flying at 35,000 feet from Doha to London.
“We’re literally just talking over Starlink immediately – that is super cool,” Musk said on the decision from his home, which was filmed and released by the Qatari airline. “It’s Starlink across the laser links of the satellites all of the method to your aircraft.”
Qatar Airways’ move to introduce free high-speed web across its fleet is a direct challenge to competitor airlines who typically offer lower-speed and sometimes patchy paid services, or status-restricted wi-fi access to the flying public.
“It should recuperate. We launched latest satellites and keep improving the software. Over time I feel you will find it just gets higher and higher,” Musk said before Al Meer gave him a video tour of the cockpit.
“Consider this because the minimum. It only gets higher from here,” Musk said to Qatar Tourism Chairman Saad bin Ali Al-Kharji, who was sitting next to Badr Al Meer on board the flight.
The Qatari state carrier plans to deliver 12 Boeing 777-300s equipped with the service by the top of 2024, with coverage for the complete Boeing 777 fleet in 2025 and its Airbus A350 fleet following in the summertime of 2025.
Regional First
Starlink, which operates as a satellite web constellation, provides high-speed and low-latency web via some 6,000 satellites, allowing passengers to stream videos, send messages and hold calls over wi-fi on multiple devices. Qatar Airways, which is undertaking a significant strategic overhaul under its latest leadership, added that the service will probably be freed from charge and will probably be operative from gate to gate.
The Gulf airline will probably be the primary within the Middle East and North Africa region to supply Starlink-supplied wi-fi to its passengers, it said in an organization statement. However it’s actually not alone in its goals – earlier in October, Air Recent Zealand CEO Greg Foran told CNBC that reliable and speedy wi-fi on full-service carriers will turn into “ubiquitous” as airlines compete to offer enhanced services for travelers.
For its part, Air Recent Zealand announced in late 2023 that Starlink could be launched on two of its domestic aircraft by late 2024.
Rising Competition
Qatar Airways told CNBC in March that it was developing a First Class concept and pursuing aircraft orders from aviation giants Boeing and Airbus, as a part of its “Qatar Airways 2.0” strategic overhaul.
It comes as latest IATA data shows global passenger demand continued to soar in August, rising 8.6% in comparison with August 2023. Middle Eastern carriers saw a 4.9% year-on-year increase in demand.
