Air New Zealand Partners With Elon Musk's Starlink To Redefine Domestic Travel With In-Flight Internet

In a landmark development, Air New Zealand is joining forces with Elon Musk‘s Starlink to offer free, high-speed internet on its domestic flights.

What Happened: The alliance with Starlink, the satellite internet service provider by SpaceX, was unveiled by Air New Zealand on Wednesday. Starlink’s internet system will be fitted on a domestic plane and, in a world first, on an ATR late in 2024. Should the trial prove successful, the airline aims to roll out Starlink Internet to the rest of its domestic fleet in 2025.

Starlink’s dependable high-speed, low-latency internet will grant Air New Zealand flyers a new in-flight experience. It will enable them to stream video content, work, and instantaneously communicate with friends and family on various devices, as though they were in their own homes.

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Air New Zealand’s Chief Digital Officer, Nikhil Ravishankar, commented on the collaboration.

“With the world’s largest satellite constellation, exploring in-motion connectivity on our aircraft with Starlink was a no-brainer,” he remarked.

Jason Fritch, a Vice President of Starlink at SpaceX, voiced his pride in teaming up with Air New Zealand to broaden the reach of their high-speed internet to more passengers globally.

Why It Matters: This announcement comes on the heels of significant developments for Starlink. The satellite broadband services of Musk-led SpaceX had earlier been made available in kits at Costco Wholesale outlets in the U.S. at $599, with Costco members receiving two months of free service. Furthermore, SpaceX had completed its 90th flight for 2023 ahead of schedule surpassing Musk s launch target for the year This milestone mission saw a Falcon 9 rocket launching 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Florida

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Photo by Rokas Tenys on Shutterstock