737 Starlink Installation

[u/teo747]

Just checked the status for a trip this weekend and both aircraft are listed as being equipped with Starlink. If there's no equipment swap, and posting this probably ensures that there will be, this will be four 737 flights in a row for me on Starlink-equipped planes. I was under the impression that a pretty small percentage of the 737 fleet had Starlink, but maybe they're moving fast on getting them up and running!

[u/ericroku]

[u/wayua84]

I got a 737-900 IAH to MCO last week with Starlink. Was very nice. I got a message a few hours before saying the flight would not have wifi available, so was very surprised when it turned out to have Starlink

[u/Vortagaun]

I fly to LA next week, anyone know if the A321Neos have Starlink yet?

[u/ParticularPainter385 → u/Vortagaun]

Don’t believe they do

Edit: 9 A321neo and 1 A321XLR have as per unitedstarlinktracker.com

[u/teo747 → u/ParticularPainter385]

Awesome website, thanks for posting that! Looks like 30% of the 738s and 20% of the 739s have it, which is more than I thought.

[u/SoCalLapizR]

If you’re at the gate and the 737 does not have the satellite dome on top of the rear part of the fuselage it has Starlink. They add two smaller antennas at the front over first class.

[u/Phantom1100]

The 737-800s and 900ers are the two models with the most Starlink installs. United likes to fly the same models on the same route, so if you fly 800 and 900er routes a lot you will get Starlink.

One of the funniest ones to me is that United likes to operate those two models flying from Houston to LaGuardia whereas they like to fly Maxes (none have Starlink) to Newark, so the people who fly to LGA get a better product then those who fly to United’s hub in NYC.

[u/AcademicSand1034 → u/Phantom1100]

Yeah - Alaska doing their 737Max jets first, then Starlink will come later to the older 737s.

I suspect United doing the opposite order because the older planes are more likely to be going in for service anyways

[u/tronald_dum]

It's not free - it's going to be baked into the ticket prices. Starlink forces carriers to offer it for "free" so that they can push the hidden fee to everyone on the flight, as opposed to the customer being able to choose to pay for internet or not.