Emirates to offer high-speed Starlink WiFi free on all its aircraft

Emirates

If you’ve ever sat on a long flight wishing the inflight WiFi actually worked, Emirates is about to make that wish come true. The airline has announced that it will start offering free, high-speed WiFi powered by Starlink — the satellite internet service created by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. And the best part is that it will be available to every passenger, no matter which seat or cabin class you’re in. For Indian travellers who often fly long routes to Dubai, Europe, the US or Australia, this could make a huge difference.

To understand why this matters, it helps to know what Starlink is. Instead of relying on ground towers like regular internet providers, Starlink uses thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth. Because these satellites stay connected even over oceans and remote regions, they can offer internet speeds that feel much closer to what we use at home. For passengers, this means the days of painfully slow or completely unusable inflight WiFi may soon be over. Emirates describes the upcoming experience as “ground-quality internet” at 35,000 feet.

The rollout will happen in stages. Emirates will begin installing Starlink antennas on its Boeing 777 aircraft from November 2025, with the first upgraded plane already showcased at the Dubai Airshow. After that, the airline plans to speed up installations, fitting about 14 aircraft every month. The larger Airbus A380s will start receiving Starlink in February 2026. If everything stays on schedule, Emirates expects its entire fleet of 232 aircraft to be connected by mid-2027, which means that within two years, almost every Emirates flight you board could offer seamless WiFi.

Once the system is active, passengers will be able to do almost everything they normally do on the ground — stream movies, scroll Instagram, make WhatsApp or FaceTime calls, play games, work on emails or simply browse the internet without interruptions. Even live TV is planned, first on personal devices and later through the seatback screens. Emirates says the connection process will be extremely simple: just one tap to get online, with no payments, no logins and no Skywards membership required.

This is a major shift for the airline industry, where WiFi has usually been slow, patchy or overpriced. By offering free Starlink internet across its entire fleet, Emirates is setting a new standard for what inflight connectivity should look like. For frequent flyers, especially those travelling from India, this could make long journeys far more enjoyable, productive and connected than ever before.