Earlier this week, I woke up my phone and opened the YouTube app, watched sports highlights, before switching to Netflix and finishing an old episode of. Arrested Development. It was absolutely amazing, except for the fact that we were hiking at 32,000 feet.
United Airlines is installing the Starlink network throughout its fleet, and this was a demo flight, intended to show how the satellite network service operated by SpaceX can provide broadband as fast as you can get home, even when you are traveling at 580 kilometers per hour six miles from the earth.
But United’s move to bring high-speed internet to its planes also underscores what will become a new reality as other airlines follow: The streaming wars will soon take to the skies.
Flyers, which were once limited to what was licensed for seat screens (assuming they were on a plane with them), will soon be able to bring their own entertainment, be it TikTok, YouTube, Netflix or Fortnite.
And airlines will adapt.
“It’s a matter of choice,” said Andrew Nocella, United’s vice VP and chief commercial officer, speaking to Hollywood Reporter while standing under the tail of the airline’s new 787-9. “What we’ve found is that Starlink just means there’s another way to connect. So there are people who want to watch a seat while they’re connecting to their cell phone to send messages, while they’re connecting to their iPad to do some work.”
United, he adds, will introduce new entertainment systems that will combine high-quality internet access in its screenbacks, which are being developed in its new planes with larger screens and 4K video.
“There’s going to be a lot more we can do with Starlink and our back-end systems in the future, we have a lot of creative ideas,” he says. “When you combine state-of-the-art in-seat entertainment with Starlink technology, it opens up possibilities that only airlines with these two combinations can unlock.”
In fact, United created a taste of what that could look like earlier this week, with a new partnership with Spotify. Subscribers to the streaming music platform can scan a QR code on their seats and have their playlists, podcasts and content available on screen. United executives were tight-lipped when asked whether they discussed similar connections to the likes of Netflix or YouTube, but the potential is clear.
Spotify on United Airlines.
United Airlines
In-flight entertainment has become a new hot spot in the streaming wars, a $300 million a year business, as studios and streamers look to sell their shows and movies to plane passengers.
Airlines have partnered with streaming services in recent years in a mutually beneficial relationship: Airlines get content, and smaller offerings like Apple TV (United, American, Air France), Peacock (JetBlue) and Paramount+ (Delta) get to give airlines a taste of their programming. YouTube also entered into a partnership with Delta last year, bringing a selection of other creators’ programs to the back screen.
For streamers, screenback screens have become an important marketing tool, exposing their show to new audiences. But it is also a source of income, albeit a modest one in the grand scheme of things. In-flight entertainment has also long been one of the film industry’s primary windows, giving flyers the chance to see movies soon after they leave theaters, but before they reach home.
But will those fliers who will be arrested have full access to their broadcast systems?
The advent of high-speed internet could change that. Other Starlink partner airlines, such as Alaska Airlines and WestJet, encourage airlines to use their devices to run entertainment (especially on short-haul flights, with flights without in-seat screens).
But the truth is, it will change what people do in the heavens.
David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer, said that in the first few months of Starlink’s launch, the family received their home gift, and one browser came to say that he “vibe-coded” a new business idea (vibe-coding uses AI coding tools to create new software).
“When we announced our partnership with Starlink, we didn’t just want to do a playbook of ‘let’s make Wi-Fi better,'” he says. “We wanted to define what’s possible with an online experience.”
But could it come at the expense of Hollywood, which has relied on the production of in-flight entertainment advertising, as well as the licensing fees that go with it.
Kinzelman made it a good thing for moviegoers. He said that before Starlink, it could take 45 days to add new movies to its fleet. With the new internet service on every plane, he says, “they will be able to take new movies at the time we buy them, update them in the air from the cloud with Starlink, and get it to our whole team in the same day.”
Whether the franchises want to watch those screens or on their devices once the Internet is fast enough and free enough is another story, and you can bet the studios will be watching, lest that old film and TV licensing window become the latest one to expire.
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