Big Starlink development in South Africa

Qatar Airways will offer SpaceX’s Starlink Aviation Wi-Fi service onboard select flights between Cape Town and Doha from 1 June 2025.

The world’s top airline said the service will allow passengers to enjoy a fully complimentary and ultra-fast Wi-Fi service for streaming, gaming, and working seamlessly at 35,000 feet.

“The introduction of Starlink on the Cape Town route comes during Qatar Airways’ 20th year of operations in South Africa,: the airline said.

“This is the latest in a series of milestones that have continued to strengthen the airline’s ties with the country and the continent.”

The first Qatar planes with Starlink Wi-Fi connectivity in South Africa will be a Boeing 777 and Airbus A350, which will be operating on one of seven weekly flights between the two destinations.

This development is part of a wider rollout of Starlink on Qatar’s entire fleet, which started in October 2024.

The airline serves Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg with up to 28 weekly flights, so the service is likely to be available more broadly in the near future.

Qatar Airways said that Starlink was “by far” the fastest Wi-Fi connection available on commercial airlines.

“Starlink’s frictionless ‘one-click-access’ allows easy connection to the complimentary Wi-Fi service, which is a further enhancement of the airline’s multiple award-winning on-board experience,” Qatar Airways said.

Like its ground-based sibling, Starlink Aviation uses a network of 7,000 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites to provide fast Internet access on airplanes.

Each Starlink Aviation terminal can support between 40Mbps and 220Mbps download speeds and 8Mbps to 25Mbps uploads, while latency is advertised at less than 99ms.

Aside from Qatar Airways, several other major commercial airlines are deploying Starlink on their planes — including United Airlines, Air France, Air New Zealand, WestJet, and Hawaiian Airlines.

Qatar Airways operates the largest Starlink-equipped fleet of Boeing 777s in the world, and will be the first to offer the service on Airbus A350s.

The airline announced its Starlink rollout with a video featuring a live Wi-Fi call between senior Qatar Airways executives and SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk.

Starlink not yet approved for ground use

Starlink has yet to receive a licence to operate its residential and business services in South Africa.

This approval must come from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

In its last feedback, Icasa said it had yet to receive Starlink’s application for the necessary telecoms licences to offer its services locally.

However, the company’s parent SpaceX may find it difficult to obtain this permission, as it would have to be 30% owned by historically-disadvantaged groups.

SpaceX is a US-based company and its ownership structure is incredibly complex, making it highly unlikely to figure out if it would meet this requirement.

Unlike other international firms, the company is also unwilling to work through local partners to launch its service — it wants to go directly to the customer.

Qatar Airways did not explain whether it had received regulatory approval to enable Starlink’s service while its planes are on the ground or only when they are in South African airspace.

Commercial airlines have the ability to switch Wi-Fi services on and off at various stages in a flight.

However, that may not matter, as plane-based Wi-Fi is generally not governed by local telecoms regulators but handled by aviation authorities.

That means that local approval for Starlink Aviation on planes flying in South Africa would fall to the South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The CAA previously approved domestic in-flight Wi-Fi services WirelessG and Row44 in 2011.

At least one domestic airline — FlySafair — has also told MyBroadband it is exploring the possibility of offering newer Wi-Fi technologies — including LEO systems like Starlink — on its flights.

FlySafair spokesperson Kirby Gordon told MyBroadband that older geosynchronous satellite Wi-Fi systems were not commercially viable for domestic airlines.