For more than two decades, I’ve been chronicling the arrival and slow decline of legacy in-flight internet, from GoGo’s early air-to-ground struggles to the painful reality of slow, overpriced connectivity that too many passengers endured. In coverage dating back to the rise of GoGo’s ATG and early satellite efforts at blocking VoIP, the pattern was consistent: slow speeds, inconsistent connections, and an experience that never met ground-level expectations.
That’s changing. And fast.
Legacy players like GoGo and traditional GEO satellite systems (including legacy offerings from Viasat) are being eclipsed by LEO satellite networks that deliver true broadband at altitude. Carriers are abandoning the old model of expensive equipment with marginal capacity for globally distributed, low-latency service that passengers actually value.
Case in point: Delta recently agreed to outfit 500 aircraft with Amazon’s Project Kuiper LEO Wi-Fi starting in 2028 (Wall Street Journal), a major win for Amazon’s entry into aviation connectivity and an explicit challenge to SpaceX’s Starlink dominance. (The Tech Buzz) JetBlue was the first to sign with Kuiper, planning rollout beginning in 2027. (Runway Girl)
Meanwhile, Starlink isn’t just an alternative; it’s already live across multiple major airlines, and carriers are switching en masse to its high-speed service. (Wikipedia)
Here’s a snapshot of how the market is shifting:
In-Flight Wi-Fi Supplier Table
| Airline | Supplier | Approx. Speeds / Notes | Orbit / Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | Starlink | ~200+ Mbps (tested), low latency | LEO, Ku-band (Wikipedia) |
| Southwest Airlines | Starlink | High-speed rollout underway | LEO, Ku-band (Runway Girl) |
| Hawaiian Airlines | Starlink | Live service, free to passengers | LEO, Ku-band (Wikipedia) |
| JetBlue | Amazon Project Kuiper | Targeted ~1 Gbps service | LEO, Ka-band (TechEBlog) |
| Delta Air Lines | Amazon Project Kuiper | New rollout from 2028 | LEO, Ka-band (The Tech Buzz) |
| American Airlines | Viasat / GEO (current) | Legacy service, slower | GEO, Ka-band (Aviation Festival News) |
| IAG (BA, Aer Lingus, Iberia) | Starlink | Upcoming rollout (~2026) | LEO, Ku-band (Aviation Festival News) |
| Lufthansa Group | Starlink | Fleetwide deployment by 2029 | LEO, Ku-band (AGN) |
Across regions, the message is clear: LEO networks deliver meaningful throughput improvements over legacy GEO systems are good enough to stream, video conference, and work without constant disconnections. That’s a far cry from the slow “GoGo era” where speed claims rarely matched reality.
So as airlines accelerate deployments of Starlink, Amazon Kuiper, and expanded high-capacity Ka-band solutions, the old in-flight Wi-Fi experience is rapidly becoming a relic.
GoGo Going Gone. And some passengers would say, “good riddance”