Hawaiian Airlines continues rollout of high-speed Starlink inflight Wi-Fi

Traditionally seen as a leisure carrier, Hawaiian Airlines didn’t have ‘inflight connectivity’ very high on its priority list. But as Hawaiian brings in a more modern fleet and takes a subtle tilt towards ‘premium’, inflight browsing is one thing its passengers are gaining. That’s thanks to a deal between Hawaiian Airlines and Starlink.

Unlike more traditional satellite-based systems, Starlink offers Hawaiian Airlines better coverage when flying over the Pacific Ocean. It’s also fast enough for every passenger to be connected at the same time, while still being usable. Passengers on some of Hawaiian’s domestic flights can already connect.

For an update on Hawaiian Airlines’ progress to get online, I catch up for an exclusive chat with Avi Mannis during his recent visit to Sydney. He’s Hawaiian Airlines’ Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, with responsibilities across practically all of the recent developments at the carrier.

Rollout of Starlink Wi-Fi on Hawaiian Airlines

There’s a new plane in Hawaiian Airlines’ fleet: the Boeing 787. It features Hawaiian’s newest Business Class experience, Leihōkū Suites. But it seems, Hawaiian Airlines’ newest plane won’t sport the new Starlink tech… yet, anyway.

‘It’s not on the Dreamliner yet,’ Mannis says of Starlink. ‘It’s across our whole fleet of A321s. We’ll start to roll it out on the A330s next. Probably, over the course of the summer, we’ll start to see that on those aircraft. Eventually … I expect (Starlink) will be (available) in this market,’ Mannis says of Australia.

‘It’s been very, very positively received on the A321. It’s free streaming-speed Wi-Fi, (with) no login screens or need to register. You just click on the wireless access point and join. And it’s really been quite transformational for us having that kind of product over the Pacific.’

‘Our guests have wanted connectivity for a long time. My view is the reason that most airlines charge for it is not to recover the cost of it because you don’t. (Instead,) because with most of the last generation of technology, if everyone uses it at the same time, it would break down and be too slow. What we have with Starlink is enough bandwidth to the aircraft that everyone can use it at the same time without it slowing down.’

Mannis is quick to point out that even for leisure travellers, access to Wi-Fi ‘is something people value. The idea of just being able to get on a plane and being always connected was something that had a lot of value for us.’ Thus, Hawaiian Airlines’ partnership with Starlink.

What speeds should passengers expect of Hawaiian Airlines’ Starlink service?

Inflight Wi-Fi has been a long time coming for Hawaiian Airlines – so how does Starlink measure up? ‘I think it’s probably comparable to a cellular streaming connection on your phone,’ Mannis explains. ‘It’s not as fast as home broadband,’ he says to set fair expectations.

‘I have used it when it’s been faster than my home broadband,’ Mannis quips. ‘But it is notably faster than most of the other products in the market. (Starlink provides) a lot more bandwidth to the aircraft and better coverage because the satellites aren’t geostationary.’

‘I’ve been on the plane and played mobile first-person shooter games, just to try it out.’ Clearly, Mannis is hands-on and wants to make sure it works as expected. ‘I think it’s really quite an exceptional product,’ says the Hawaiian Airlines executive on Starlink.

Mannis sees another advantage of having this degree of connectivity. ‘You don’t have to decide what content to download (before your flight),’ because you can stream Netflix and the like right to your seat.

‘We were one of the last airlines to have connectivity. But I feel we were very lucky that we were able to wait until this juncture when Starlink was coming onto the market. We were able to jump straight to the next generation of product without having installed a legacy product on our system.’ If the connection with Starlink was an upgrade rather than a fresh system, existing infrastructure ‘would’ve been very expensive to change out.’

Do people choose an airline based on inflight Wi-Fi alone?

It’s fair to ask – given Hawaiian Airlines has gone so long without inflight Wi-Fi, was it really needed? Was the carrier losing passengers to its rivals just because the others had some form of connectivity on board?

‘I don’t think we were losing sales,’ Mannis notes. But the lack of Wi-Fi ‘was a real disappointment for people when they got on board, especially on some of our longer flights like the East Coast (USA) to Hawaii. I think people expected it.’

‘Our domestic competitors’ Wi-Fi didn’t work terribly well between the West Coast and Hawaii. But they still offered it, so it felt like a product deficit. But we didn’t want to make this huge investment and not have a product that lived up to our standards.’

For Hawaiian Airlines, ‘Starlink is really quite an exceptional experience. I’m excited for it … because again, I think people don’t expect it as much over the Pacific because of the legacy of satellite coverage here. So I think, when we do have it between Sydney and Honolulu, it’s going to be a real delight for people.’

Why isn’t Starlink already on Hawaiian Airlines’ Boeing 787s?

Back to the Boeing 787 for a moment. With a new aircraft coming into the fleet, why aren’t those Hawaiian Airlines jets arriving with Starlink already installed? Mannis explains.

‘The Dreamliner, we had fully specced out for delivery in 2020. So, some of it was just not having done that. We did the A321s first because those planes only fly back and forth between Hawaii and the (US) west coast. And so it felt like the place we would start.’

‘The 787 will get it, but we have to go through Boeing’s program.’ Because those aircraft had already previously been configured, making that happen takes ‘slightly longer, and you have to do a line fit program and then do retrofits.’ In simpler terms, Hawaiian Airlines needs to begin by installing Starlink onto new planes at the factory before it can proceed with upgrading existing aircraft.

‘So at some point, it’ll be (installed) at the factory. I don’t know which number in our delivery of 787s,’ Mannis says of timing. ‘But we’ll have some aircraft, (then) we’ll have to go back and retrofit (others). So the 787, unfortunately, will be the last in our group of long-haul aircraft to get Starlink connections.’

For now, passengers on Hawaiian Airlines’ Dreamliners will have to remain content with having the airline’s best Business Class cabin on board. Once Wi-Fi is added as well, Hawaiian Airlines’ appeal to business travellers will be even greater, aligning with the airline’s slight tilt towards the premium traveller.

Also read: How airlines are using ‘connected’ aircraft for more than just passenger Wi-Fi

Imagery courtesy of Hawaiian Airlines.