I tried Starlink on my BA flight, which changes the Wi-Fi-on-planes game

British Airways Airbus A350 — (Image credit: British Airways)

Last week, ahead of a personal trip to Austin, Texas, I received a pre-flight email from British Airways alerting me that the A350 scheduled for that route was fitted with Starlink.

Starlink is the satellite internet service, as provided by SpaceX, which has won contracts with many carriers to fit its antennas to fleets. British Airways first announced this almost one year ago, in November 2025.

However, it's taking time for such upgrades to be completed, as the BA fleet has only reached double-digit successful fittings to date – but as the rollout continues, Starlink will eventually feature on all its aircraft, not just those destined for long-haul routes.

I'm a frequent flyer and this is the first time I've encountered in-flight Starlink, which BA offers for free to all passengers for the duration of the flight, regardless of ticket type or cabin of travel.

Speed test of Starlink on British Airways flight

That's a huge upgrade over the current non-Starlink in-flight internet situation, where free flight-duration Wi-Fi is available only to passengers in First class (where available), and pay-for for all other passengers in Club, Premium, and Economy.

To access, you must be a member of the British Airways Club, as that's where sign-in takes place for the Wi-Fi connection. But this is at no cost – and you can also earn Avios (BA's redemption currency) and Tier Points to rise up the frequent flyer ranks.

As you can see from the image embedded above, Starlink is fast – really fast. I was able to connect even before take-off, much to my surprise, and from the Tarmac at Heathrow T3 I was achieving download speeds of around 285Mbps.

That's on par with, or even faster than, the Wi-Fi I get in my home office – which is sourced from a gigabit BT Full Fibre connection. Sure, I can get faster results when nearer to my router, but to achieve such sustained speeds while in an aircraft fuselage is nothing short of impressive.

Once airborne, I re-tested and, consistently, Starlink was delivering sustained download speeds at over 200Mbps. Upload isn't quite so impressive, at 17Mbps in my testing, but perfectly good enough for real-time calls. I was achieving the same on the return flight, too.

That meant, at no cost, I was able to stream part of an episode of Paramount+'s latest Dexter season without issue, which I could never have imagined would be feasible even just a couple of years ago. Starlink really does change the game.

Part of me wishes there was no Wi-Fi on flights, as a rare opportunity to escape the connected world. The other side of me, however, knows how important connectivity has become for work – and that's where it will become a reason for someone to book with a specific carrier over another.

So I can see huge sense in the Starlink and British Airways agreement. It's free for all passengers – and its speeds surpass what else is available to such a huge degree that it's totally changed the idea of what in-flight Wi-Fi can mean.

Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 18 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.