Hawaiian Airlines selects SpaceX as its inflight WiFi service provider

 Report, image by : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA

Image :of Hawaiian Airlines' A330 : Researcher's Picture

Tesla CEO and the world's richest man, Elon Musk, has finalized big business with an international airline. SpaceX, its space exploration technology company, recently signed an agreement with Hawaiian Airlines to provide it with in-flight WiFi service named "Starlink".

Hawaiian Airlines announced on 25 April 2022 that it will offer free "Starlink" internet service on planes including the Airbus A330 and A321neo and the upcoming Dreamliner 787-9 from 2023. It does not have any plan to deploy Starlink on its Boeing 717 jets that operate short-haul flights among the Hawaiian Islands.

Under the agreement, Hawaiian Airlines will be the first major airline to offer passengers free Starlink high-speed, low-latency broadband network service on flights between the Hawaiian Islands and the continental U.S., Asia and Oceania.

Hawaiian Airlines offers approximately 130 daily flights within the Hawaiian Islands and daily nonstop flights between Hawaii and 16 U.S. gateway cities, as well as from Honolulu ro American Samoa, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and French Polynesia islands of Tahiti.

The agreement between Hawaiian Airlines and Starlink is in the initial stages, with installations of the service expected to begin on select aircraft next year.

"We're going to have to wait until the technology meets our high standards for the guest experience, but it's worth the wait," Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram said on 25 April 2022.

SpaceX has sought regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to test Starlink on planes and transport ships, after testing the internet network on a handful of Gulfstream jets and military aircraft.

Hawaiian Airlines has not yet tested Starlink on its aircraft, Avi Mannis, Hawaiian's chief marketing and communications officer, told CNBC. She added that there are still "certification issues" that need to be resolved before Hawaiian Airlines can begin operating the service.

In addition to its partnership with Hawaiian Airlines, last week, SpaceX signed its first air network agreement with JSX, a U.S. semi-private charter company, to equip up to 100 aircraft with Starlink service. Later this year, JSX customers will enjoy free WiFi service. .

The total number of satellites authorized by SpaceX is 4,408, and the company has so far put more than 2,000 Starlink satellites into orbit. Starlink's satellites are designed to rapidly transmit vast amounts of information to anywhere on Earth, including oceans and other places hard-to-reach by fiber-optic cables.