Turns out Starlink isn’t the only satellite-based wifi system making inroads with the world’s airlines. The last year has seen the Elon Musk-headed company partner with the likes of Air France and United, but JetBlue has gone in a different direction, announcing this week that they’ll be working with the Amazon subsidiary Project Kuiper. This will mark an interesting shift for the latter, as this is their first commercial airline partnership.
If you’re a frequent JetBlue traveler, it may be a while before you get to try out the airline’s new wifi connections; according to the announcement, Project Kuiper’s service will be available on “a portion of [JetBlue’s] fleet in 2027.” The airline will begin upgrading technology on their planes to move from its existing internet connection to the one provided by Project Kuiper.
“With Project Kuiper, we’re working to ensure customers can enjoy fast, reliable internet wherever they are — at home or 35,000 feet in the air — and we’re pumped to bring that to life with JetBlue,” Panos Panay, the senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services, explained in a statement. Are we entering a new era of airlines partnering with satellite wifi providers? It’s starting to look like it.
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It’ll begin with new concessions optionsIt isn’t hard to see what both parties get from this deal: JetBlue no longer has to maintain its own wireless network, while Project Kuiper gets to demonstrate what its service is capable of to (potentially) millions of travelers each year. The Amazon subsidiary is still getting its network into place; its first satellites made their way into orbit in April of this year, and another 27 are set to launch later this month.
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