Starlink free Wi-Fi coming to airplanes in South Africa — but there is a catch

Free and fast Wi-Fi supported by SpaceX’s groundbreaking satellite Internet service could soon be available on many commercial planes flying in and out of South Africa.

However, it remains to be seen whether the service will be active at times when these planes are in South African airspace, considering it has yet to receive official regulatory approval from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

Starlink Aviation is part of the SpaceX-operated low-earth orbit satellite service’s business division and has scored several deals with large airlines since launching in October 2022.

According to Starlink’s website, the service has been used on more than 55,000 flights lasting over 110,000 hours.

At least three international airlines operating flights between South Africa and global destinations have started or plan to fit their entire fleets with Starlink Wi-Fi by 2025.

Qatar Airways, the world’s top-rated airline, was the first major carrier to announce that it would add Starlink services to certain aircraft and routes in October 2023.

The company operates multiple flights from South Africa to Doha in Qatar, a popular transit airport for other destinations, every week.

Its first commercial flight with Starlink Wi-Fi flew from Doha to London in October 2024. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Qatar Airways CEO Badr Mohammed All-Meer conducted a high-quality video call during the flight to demonstrate the service’s capabilities.

Qatar Airways will equip its entire Boeing 777 and Airbus A350 fleets with Starlink in 2025. The service will be free for all passengers.

United Airlines also inked a deal with Starlink to install Wi-Fi in more than 1,000 mainline and regional aircraft, including those flying between South Africa and Washington DC or New York.

The most recent addition is Air France, which announced in late September 2024 that it would gradually equip all its planes with Starlink from 2025. The service will also be free in all cabins — economy, business, and first class.

Starlink will eventually completely replace Air France’s current geosynchronous (GEO) satellite service.

Although in-flight Wi-Fi is nothing new, Starlink offers significant advantages over most existing systems.

With cruising altitudes typically higher than 30,000 feet (9.1km), satellite connectivity is the only commercially viable method for providing Internet on an airliner.

For a long time, airlines’ only option was GEO satellite services. These services use one or just a few satellites orbiting more than 35,000 kilometres above the Earth.

Compared to terrestrial solutions like fibre and mobile, they have much lower speeds, more limited capacity, and significantly increased latency.

Starlink is an LEO service, and its fleet of 6,700 satellites operates at a much closer altitude of about 550km.

Each of Starlink Aviation’s airplane terminals supports download speeds between 40Mbps and 220Mbps and upload speeds of 8Mbps to 25Mbps.

Latency is also advertised at under 100ms, making timing-sensitive applications like video and voice calling and online gaming more feasible than on GEO, which typically has pings over 600ms.

However, just because these planes will be fitted with Starlink Wi-Fi, it does not mean that the service will be available in South African airspace.

Like other satellite services, Starlink requires approval from regulatory authorities in each country where it wants to roll out its services.

According to the company’s Starlink Aviation support page, the service is authorised for use over international waters, but coverage over local territorial waters and land is contingent on government regulatory approvals.

There are 88 countries or territories where Starlink has received regulatory approval for in-motion aviation use, but South Africa is not included on the list.

African countries that are listed include Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, where Starlink also has approval for ground-based residential and business use.

Starlink said that in countries where it has approval, the in-flight Wi-Fi service can generally be used on the ground, during take-off, in flight, and during landing, except in cases where specific airport rules prohibit onboard Internet services.

All is not lost for those hoping to use the service on an Air France, United Airlines, or Qatar Airways flight over South Africa.

Starlink also states that “beyond the list of approved countries,” its Aviation service is operational in light overland above “most countries around the world, with very few exceptions.”

It remains to be seen whether Starlink or airlines will implement mitigations to disable the service in South Africa, considering its regulatory standing, or whether South Africa is part of the unspecified “most countries around the world.”

Despite having a clause in its terms and conditions which bars the use of its service in areas without regulatory approval, Starlink allows people in South Africa and other African countries to access its service through roaming, with some restrictions.