United Airlines is already pulling travelers away from other airlines with its Starlink Wi-Fi, CEO Scott Kirby said Wednesday, and the service will be on half of United’s flights by the end of this week.
Kirby made the comments in an interview on CNBC‘s Squawk Box on October 21, the morning after United reported its third-quarter results. “We’re going to cross the 50% threshold this week with 50% of flights on Starlink,” he said. “By the end of next year, we’ll finish Starlink. We already see customers moving from other airlines today.”
He stopped short of calling it a fix for United’s profits, though. “Is it going to be enough to get us to double-digit margins? I don’t know. It’s going to be hard,” Kirby said.
Asked to put numbers on how many customers have switched because of Starlink, Kirby said the evidence is “mostly anecdotal today,” then pointed to United’s recent status match offer. “The status match program that we did had about four times normal status match applications as normal status match programs do,” he said. “And what’s amazing is a quarter of those customers either have or have applied for the United credit card, which also is an indication of intent to stay.”
Elon Musk shared a clip of the interview on X with a short reaction: “Starlink moves the needle.”
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 21, 2026
What Kirby said on air lines up with United’s third-quarter earnings release from October 20. The airline says Starlink is installed on more than 640 aircraft and available on about half of all United flights, including regional flights, with roughly three more planes added each day. United expects availability to reach 61% by the end of 2026 and 87% by June 1, 2027, with the full fleet done by the end of 2027. More than 5.4 million United customers flew with Starlink in September alone.
Kirby made the same argument in the release. “We are winning new long-term, brand-loyal United customers because they are trying us for Starlink but staying with us for the industry-leading app, great service, on-board product and technology,” he said. United also reported that customer service scores on Starlink-equipped planes were nearly double those on aircraft with other Wi-Fi.
United signed its Starlink deal with SpaceX in September 2024, flew its first Starlink-equipped customer flight on a United Express Embraer 175 in May 2025, and launched the service on its first mainline jet, a Boeing 737-800 flying from Newark to Houston, in October 2025. When United launched its Starlink tracker on October 15, it counted more than 635 equipped aircraft covering nearly half of its daily departures. Starlink Wi-Fi is free for MileagePlus members.
Those status match numbers come from United’s “Switch to Better Wi-Fi” offer, which launched October 1 and targets elite members at Delta and American. In its October 15 update, United said applications were running 275% above pre-campaign levels, and it extended the offer to October 22.
Both of those rivals are taking different paths. Delta CEO Ed Bastian explained earlier this month why Delta passed on Starlink, and Delta plans to install Amazon Leo on an initial 500 aircraft starting in 2028. American, meanwhile, plans to put Starlink on every mainline jet starting in early 2027, and Southwest says its entire fleet will have Starlink by fall 2027.
If you fly Delta or American, would Starlink be enough to get you to switch to United?
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