United Airlines took to one of the biggest advertising stages in the world this weekend to highlight something far more practical than celebrity cameos or slapstick humor.
United Flexes Starlink Wi-Fi Advantage In Super Bowl Spotlight
During the Super Bowl, United aired a 30-second commercial focused squarely on its rollout of Starlink high-speed internet. The message was simple: inflight Wi-Fi that actually works is no longer aspirational.
Rather than rely on a famous face or over-the-top theatrics, the ad leaned into functionality. Passengers were shown streaming live sports, gaming, and browsing seamlessly in the air, underscoring United’s claim that Starlink connectivity offers a meaningful upgrade over legacy inflight systems.
The timing was deliberate. United says it has now equipped more than 300 regional aircraft with Starlink and expects to expand the installation rapidly across its fleet, including 500 mainline aircraft, by the end of 2026. The airline has positioned connectivity as a competitive differentiator, particularly as travelers increasingly expect gate-to-gate internet that mirrors the experience on the ground.
Maggie Schmerin, United’s Chief Advertising Officer, explained:
“We are focused on what we call ‘travel truths’ in our advertising, so with this spot we wanted to recognize the truly giant leap Starlink Wi-Fi represents for our customers and what is now possible. Starlink is transforming the inflight experience on United planes with reliable connectivity that enables everything from productivity to streaming the biggest football game of the season.”
While other carriers continue to roll out or refine their own connectivity platforms, United clearly wanted to use the Super Bowl spotlight to signal that it is not waiting. Reliable onboard internet has shifted from a novelty to a baseline expectation, especially for business travelers and younger flyers who assume they can remain connected at 35,000 feet.
United’s customer satisfaction scores for inflight Wi-Fi have nearly doubled on aircraft equipped with Starlink…it’s the sort of investment that strikes me as a winning formula, even as American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are currently ahead of United when it comes to free Wi-Fi. Starlink, however is faster and stabler. If United can pull this off, it will be a huge boon for the carrier in terms of winning loyalty…I’m very confident about that.
CONCLUSION
Whether Starlink ultimately proves as seamless across the entire fleet as it appears in a polished television spot remains to be seen. But United made clear that it sees inflight connectivity as central to its brand proposition, not merely an ancillary amenity. I think the ad is very effective and shows how United is on the cutting edge of technology and also trying to dominate, not just catch-up…
> Read More: My First Starlink Internet Flight On United Airlines
Anyone that travels with any frequency in the US had to watch that commercial and ask “say, what?”
B6 started in-flight WiFi on a fleetwide basis and they are well past 250 aircraft. DL took the concept global and has about 1200 mainline and large RJs. AA finally flipped the switch and has about as many aircraft as DL but fewer mainline and does not offer anything free across the Atlantic or Pacific or to deep S. America.
That makes UA 4th among US airlines and even further behind B6 if we use seats that have WiFi – kinda like UA’s made-up seat cancellation rate to highlight that it cancels its RJ flights to keep mainline operating at its overscheduled hubs like EWR.
Given that a whole nother Super Bowl will happen and UA will still be installing Starlink on its planes while AA and DL will have far more planes in service with high speed WiFi, this is an aspirataional rather than realistic commercial.
The Budweiser ad was, to no surprise, still the best. There was just a little sun in my eye too as I watched that commercial. 🙂
I really don’t get your point here. UA has all mainline plans equipped with Wi-Fi now…and all 70-seat regional jets too. The issue is not lack of Wi-Fi, but free higher speed Wi-Fi. And while it is great what JetBlue led the industry in and what Delta and now American are offering, the speeds are still not the sort of broadband speeds we expect at home, even with Viasat. I’m sure there will be many competitors to Starlink in the years to come, but Starlink is game-changing…it brings United into a whole higher league that will leapfrog AA and DL until they upgrade their own systems and UA expects 800 aircraft to be retrofitted by the end of 2026, which is quite impressive if it can keep that schedule.
Seriously, Starlink is impressive. Used in on QR recently and it was like 250mbps over the North Atlantic. Nuts. I wish Elon just focused on that and not defunding aide to needy children around the world. As for Tim, wear some sunglasses!
I wonder if UA bites the bullet and just makes wifi free across the fleet at some point this year when more mainline aircraft get starlink. It would make things much less confusing for customers
Matthew,
We have been watching ads from UA about Starlink for years but the reality is that UA’s path to Starlink is more aspirational than real at this point.
there is a first mover advantage to offering a new product; UA will verifiably be the last of the big 3 and RIGHT NOW B6 has more mainline aircraft and more seats that have access to high speed free Wifi than UA.
and, no, UA does not have high speed WiFi on its own aircraft that do not have Starlink – free or not. They don’t even call all of their current legacy systems high speed because it is not.
as for the incessant “but Starlink is so much faster,” no one other than the cheering section for UA would argue that the hope of 1000 more aircraft with high speed free WiFi in a couple years beats hundreds of competitor aircraft that have it now.
Starlink MIGHT be faster but let’s compare apples to apples NOW and UA trails the industry now.
Further, other providers are upgrading their own systems and increasing speeds. Viasat is launching another satellite over N. America this spring and another new one over Asia later this year.
and part of DL’s mainline fleet and most of its large RJs use Hughes which puts less stress on the Viasat system.
AA will very likely turn on free high speed WiFi over the Atlantic and offer it on a higher percentage of aircraft than UA; DL has near 100% coverage across the Atlantic and to Latin America.
As for speed, normal people don’t run speed tests. They do know that they can stream videos on AA and DL’s systems as well as slower functions like chatting and doing office functions like email.
Like a whole lot of things, UA talks big well before it actually delivers. People who actually travel know full well that UA is well behind DL, AA and B6 in WiFi deployment right now.
It will be the 2027 SuperBowl and UA will still have far fewer free high speed WiFi equipped aircraft than AA and DL.
High-speed kudos to UA!
340 Mpbs on my most recent UA flight with Starlink. And no longer limited to one connected device, which usually ends up being my phone instead of my laptop. You said it correctly, Matthew: it’s a game-changer.
As is known, with today’s bandwidth-intensive activities and multiple connected devices, 300 Mbps or higher is the ideal starting point for modern households.
I recently had starlink on UAX to my connecting LAX to LHR flight. The speed on UAX (Starlink) was amazing. The speed on LAX to LJR was meh! Can’t wait for mainline to be fitted with Starlink!
I just used Starlink for the first time this past Friday on a Mesa E175 between IAH and LGA and it was seriously impressive.
And I’m not a WiFi snob by any stretch.
I agree. I am an AA EXP and flew a direct flight out of DIA last week. I was seriously impressed. I want it everywhere!!!! Fire Isom and bring on Starlink.