In recent times, we’ve seen many airlines introduce Starlink Wi-Fi. Starlink has really raised the bar when it comes to inflight connectivity, in terms of the speeds and bandwidth, and also in terms of it being free across airlines.

While there’s no competing service that’s available yet, we know that Amazon is working on one, and Delta has just signed on as a customer.

Delta will partner with Amazon on inflight connectivity

Delta and Amazon have announced that they’re launching a long term collaboration to overhaul inflight entertainment. Most significantly, the new agreement will bring high speed, low latency internet from Amazon Leo to Delta aircraft. Think of it as being along similar lines to Starlink, and offering speeds you’d be happy with at home.

The big catch here is the timeline — installation is expected to start in 2028, and is initially only planned for 500 aircraft, which makes up significantly less than half of Delta’s fleet (between mainline and regional aircraft).

Beyond the new inflight connectivity, Delta and Amazon say that they’ll also partner to expand the Delta Sync seat back experience, to add more personalization and options. Delta and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will also partner to use Amazon technologies and AI to improve the customer experience across the Delta travel journey.

Here’s how Delta CEO Ed Bastian describes this:

“Delta’s future is global. This agreement gives us the fastest and most cost-effective technology available to better connect the world today, and it deepens our work with a global leader that shares our ambition to build what’s next — creating even stronger human connection for our people and our customers for years to come.”

I’m happy to see this news, but the timeline isn’t ideal

I’m honestly pleased to see Starlink getting a bit of competition, since the company has had the entire high speed inflight internet market cornered. It’ll be nice that we can soon pick which hundred billionaire we’d like to enrich. 😉

Here in the United States, United, Alaska, and Hawaiian, have all signed on for Starlink. Then JetBlue was the first to commit to Amazon Leo, and now Delta is second. American is reportedly still considering both options.

As much as I appreciate the competition, I feel that this puts Delta at a significant disadvantage, especially for the airline keeping its premium reputation:

• Keep in mind Delta hasn’t even completed its latest round of Wi-Fi upgrades, which were announced a few years ago
• United expects to have Starlink on its entire fleet by the end of 2027, before Delta even installs Amazon Leo on a single aircraft
• The project will only start in 2028, and Delta only currently has plans to install this on 500 aircraft, which makes up well under half of the total fleet

It’s hard to give the airline too much credit for basically saying “yeah, we’ll start installing high speed Wi-Fi on less than half of our fleet after our biggest competitor finishes installing it on all planes.”