United Airlines Is Making a Major Change to Its Onboard Wi-Fi

Meghann Foye

Tue, October 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM UTC

United Airlines Is Making a Major Change to Its Onboard Wi-Fi

Plane Wi-Fi has never been anyone's favorite. It's typically $10+ dollars for a few hours, or more for a long-haul flight and you're lucky if it works half the time.

But all that's changing as of tomorrow at 8 a.m. when the first mainline Unitedflight will take off from NYC to Houston with Starlink Wi-Fi enabled across both personal and in-flight entertainment screens, allowing much faster—and cheaper internet access for the first time on a major U.S. carrier.

The airline joins other Starlink-enabled international carriers, such as Qatar Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, airBaltic and Air France.

While half of the regional fleet offers the service, the airline plans to install Starlink on up to 15 mainline 737-800 planes each month.

United Just Made In-Flight Wi-Fi Smarter (and Cheaper)

The roll-out has been almost a year in coming.

"Our ability to roll out this innovative service with unprecedented speed and scale is a direct result of the advanced equipment, technology and team of experts at United," United's VP of Digital Technology, Grant Milstead, said when the partnership was announced in January. "Starlink has been a terrific partner—our combined spirit of innovation and collaboration will enable us to hit our goal of more than 300 regional aircraft installations before the end of this year."

Ultimately, United will add Starlink to its entire fleet. And, even better, Wi-Fi access will be available for free to all MileagePlus customers and include inflight entertainment, streaming services, shopping, gaming and more.

"This gate-to-gate connectivity will enable experiences in the sky at scale that no other major U.S. airline provides, on seatback screens and personal devices simultaneously," the carrier said.

It will pay to sign up for the loyalty program: passengers who have not signed up for a MileagePlus account will not have access to Wi-Fi at all, since older onboard internet systems are being removed during the Starlink installation process.

More Ways to Get Better—and Cheaper Wi-Fi Service on Flights

Up until now, passengers haven't had the best options for low-cost in-flight Wi-Fi. Typically, you have these methods to save on in-flight Wi-Fi:

Buy in advance online.Purchasing passes via the airline's website in advance may sometimes be cheaper than buying them on board.
Use airline or phone loyalty programs.Many airlines' loyalty programs, such as Delta, offer free or reduced-cost Wi-Fi access (still, it can be spotty and/or not available for parts of the trip.)
Get a subscription if you fly frequently.Some airlines offer bundle rates for heavy users—American Airlines, for example, is as low as $10 on board, or $49.95 a month for one device for a subscription.)
Check your mobile carrier plan.T-Mobile, for example, may offer free Wi-Fi on United or Delta or a set number of free flights with Wi-Fi as part of its premium plan.
Get a travel credit card with Wi-Fi perks.Some credit cards, particularly airline co-branded cards, may provide free Wi-Fi or statement credits to cover Wi-Fi purchases.
Think about what apps you really need.Look for a cheaper messaging-only Wi-Fi plan if you only plan to use WhatsApp or iMessage.

And if you want less-spotty service, check your flight to see what service is available, download heavy bandwidth content ahead of time, like movies or videos you want to watch. Update your apps before you fly to preserve bandwidth and disable anything auto-refreshing in the background that could be eating up data in the background.

This story was originally reported by Parade on Oct 14, 2025, where it first appeared in the Travel section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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