Delta Airlines said it would begin offering free in-flight Wi-Fi to rewards-member passengers on most domestic mainline aircraft starting next month. That news may have travelled under the radar in San Diego amid the deluge of announcements at CES. But it involved a local company \u2014 Carlsbad-based Viasat, the satellite Internet provider that supplies in-flight Wi-Fi connectivity for a growing portion of Delta\u2019s domestic fleet. The airline will offer the free service for SkyMiles members on most Delta flights with Viasat Wi-Fi within the U.S. starting Feb. 1. It will be offered on more than 700 Delta aircraft by the end of 2023.\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt work, at home and everywhere in between, connectivity is essential to daily life, and your journey on Delta should be no different,\u201d said Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian in a statement. \u201cOur vision has long been to deliver an experience at 30,000 feet that feels similar to what our customers have available on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Working with engineers from Viasat, Delta tested the system with an eye toward rolling out the free program on a larger number of additional routes by the end of 2024. \u201cIt is imperative all customers on board can enjoy their favorite content just as they would at home, and we\u2019ve put this system through meticulous tests to make that possible,\u201d said Bastian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delta isn\u2019t the first U.S. airline to offer free Wi-Fi to passengers. JetBlue, one of Viasat\u2019s early in-flight connectivity customers, also offers it at no charge. Being able to deliver the Internet connectivity economically enough to allow airlines to offer it to passengers at low cost or for free has long been touted as a possibility by Viasat executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cViasat\u2019s system \u2014 from the satellites to how we manage bandwidth \u2014 has been designed over many years to enable consistent, high-quality Wi-Fi at scale for customers like Delta, so those traveling on Viasat-equipped Delta aircraft can enjoy their favorite content\u2014similar to how they would at home,\u201d said Don Buchman, general manager of the company\u2019s commercial aviation business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delta\u2019s move comes as Viasat is facing increased competition in the in-flight connectivity market from newcomers including SpaceX\u2019s Starlink Aviation, which is working with Hawaiian Airlines, JSX and others to deliver in-flight Internet from its low-earth orbit satellite constellation. Viasat\u2019s current fleet of high-orbit, geostationary satellites are nearly full. To increase capacity, the company is expected to launch its next-generation satellite, ViaSat-3, before the end of March. It will deliver an additional terabit of targeted bandwidth to Viasat\u2019s network. This first satellite will cover the Americas. Six months later, a second ViaSat-3 is expected to blast off, providing coverage over Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The third satellite in the constellation, which will deliver bandwidth to the Asia-Pacific region, is forecast to launch less than a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith ViaSat-3, we believe Viasat still will have the lowest cost per bit in a market where demand far exceeds supply,\u201d said Mike Crawford, an analyst with B. Riley Securities, a member of the Discovery Group. \u201cBut we do acknowledge there are a lot more existing and future bits to be consumed, including from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink constellation, not to mention a nearly-deployed OneWeb constellation and a soon-to-be-launched Kuiper from Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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