Hawaiian Completes A330 Starlink Installations

Ahead of schedule, Hawaiian completes A330 Starlink installations, providing free high-speed connectivity on all of its Airbus-operated flights. This also means that all trans-Oceanic flights now offer in-flight WiFi, except for those operated by the carrier’s new Boeing 787-9s. 

Hawaiian Airlines is the first airline operating regularly scheduled flights to adopt and deploy Space X’s low Earth orbit satellite-based internet service. As such, it’s been a long road between the announcement of the agreement and the deployment of the service since Hawaiian had to obtain FAA certification for each aircraft type they installed Starlink on. However, things really began picking up this year when the commenced the service rollout on the A321neos followed shortly by the A330s. Now, just months after it began, Hawaiian completes A330 Starlink installations, allowing passengers the ability to better predict whether they’ll have the service or not. 

Hawaiian Completes A330 Starlink Installations

Back in late July, during Hawaiian’s Q2 2024 quarterly earnings call, the company reported that Starlink deployment had been completed on its fleet of A321neos, while certification had already been finished for the A330. Not only that, but 25% of the A330 fleet had been equipped with Starlink at the time of the announcement. Hawaiian’s current fleet is comprised of 24 A330s, 25% of the fleet is six aircraft. At the time, company officials said they expected to wrap up installations by the end of September 2024, a full three months ahead of their original goal of by the end of 2024. 

Well, while the end of September is nearing, the airline beat its estimates again, as Hawaiian completes A330 Starlink installations with about  nearly two weeks to spare. This news comes by way of SimpleFlying, which itself learned of the news from a Hawaiian Airlines captain with the Twitter handle @infantrypilot, who reported that all installations were completed as of September 19, 2024. 

SimpleFlying reports that Hawaiian will install Starlink on their 787s by the end of the year, but this is patently false. As I mentioned earlier, Hawaiian reported that they were going to complete installations across their Airbus fleet by the end of the year. Moreover, while not impossible, I doubt Hawaiian has the time or will to remove one of their 787s from service to install the equipment needed to complete the certification process. Plus, I’ve heard that United is in the process of certifying the 787 for Starlink. But, more on United tomorrow. 

Final Thoughts

Since Hawaiian completes A330 Starlink installations, it now takes a lot of ambiguity out of whether or not you’ll have WiFi on your flight. I swear, ever since the installations began, this has been the number one type of question on the Hawaiian Air sub on Reddit. Questions were often either if my particular flight on a certain day will have the service, or if a specific tail number was equipped. But, of course, it was often a shot in the dark unless someone could confirm a tail number had it. 

At any rate, it’s worth reiterating that Starlink is not coming to the Boeing 717, while the 787s aren’t getting it yet. I’m sure the 787s will get Starlink in the future, so it’s a question of when rather than if. That all said, I think the larger more interesting question is whether or not Alaska Air will eventually switch from Intelsat to Starlink, too? It would be great if they did, but Alaska only recently finished installing Intelsat on the majority of its fleet, while new aircraft continue to receive the service, too. So, even if they do make the switch, I’m sure it’ll be quite some time before they do.