A piece of important news has been shared by numerous media outlets that are showcasing the new partnership of Elon Musk’s SpaceX with Qatar Airways. This partnership is surely beneficial for its commuters and new services have been added to make travelling more pleasurable. According to the reports, Qatar Airways has recently signed an agreement with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. In this new agreement, every passenger of Qatar Airways will get Starlink Wifi in the sky without paying any additional charges with speeds up to 350 Mbps. This facility will soon be provided to the commuters of Qatar Airways to enjoy “ultra-fast” Wi-Fi speeds.
The largest satellite internet constellation promises to bring revolution in-flight connectivity in Qatar Airways. Under this agreement, Qatar Airways is ready to become the largest airline that partnered with SpaceX to provide commuters a complimentary satellite WiFi service during the traveling. This latest agreement of SpaceX with Qatar Airlines not only put an end to the cost for commuters but also promised a substantial increase in the speeds of downloads. Note that at present, the current best Super Wifi service on Quick Response Code (QR) provides speeds of 10 Mbps. Now under this agreement, commuters of Qatar Airways will get broadband rates of 350 Mbps per device.
Qatar Airways is already known as the best airline in the Middle East and this facility will surely increase its reputation. This Airways already informed that once this new service is activated or started, commuters will get to experience ultra-fast Wi-Fi speeds and there will not be any additional charges for it. This enhanced connective will make online activities smooth such as VPN access, sports streaming, gaming, video calls, and so on. The purpose of adding this facility is to make a reliable in-flight experience. This news has been officially shared by the Chief Executive of Qatar Airways Group, Akbar Al Baker.
Akbar Al Baker has expressed his happiness over the new partnership of Qatar Airways with SpaceX’s Starlink. As per his statement, “The introduction of Starlink will provide unbeaten high-speed connectivity that was previously impossible to provide or deliver to aircraft.” One more statement has been shared by the Doha-based carrier in which they state that “As a leading 5-star airline of the world, Qatar Airways remains committed to offering the best passenger experience onboard, and the agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX will permit our commuters to have an exclusive high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity experience onboard with just an easy one-click access.”
The reports further added that no official timeline has been shared by Qatar Airways or SpaceX but it is assumed that the implementation of Starlink-powered WiFi will happen by the end of 2023 or the start of 2024. Well, for the official announcement we need to wait. The implementation of this new service will happen after passing the testing phase and the approval of important regulations. With this new partnership, Qatar Airways joins the ranks of early Starlink adoption partners in this industry alongside JSX, Delta, and Hawaiian Airlines. This deal came into existence to offer complimentary rich WiFi speed to its passengers by keeping the services of rival airways in mind such as Emirates. As the global coverage of Starlink continues to grow, the aviation industry might witness a change towards high-speed broadband becoming a standard offering on long-haul airways.
At present, this latest project of Qatar Airways- a high-speed and low-latency network is in the pre-launch phase. This new connectivity is merely for specified aircraft and select routes, the announcement of these selected routes will be shared soon but when it remains to be disclosed. Moreover, this deal means that people commuting between more than 160 destinations that this airline flies to will be able to use the services of Starlink. This facility will be available after the commuter boards the plane.