This might be enough to get me to voluntarily fly United Airlines if it A) were more widespread than the one regional airplane into which they’ve installed it, and B) Starlink wasn’t owned by the most cringeworthy, deeply uncool billionaire villain since Quantum of Solace.

Anywho, it’s just the start of things for America’s second-most “oops, I lost your luggage” airline. They plan to equip “40+” regional aircraft per month, beginning in May and running through the rest of the year.

faster and quicker

Not only will the in-flight Wi-Fi be offered by United for free, but at 250 Mbps, it’ll be 50 times faster than the typical Wi-Fi speeds offered on board a plane. It’s not fiber-optic speeds, but that’s respectable, even for an at-home, down-on-the-ground Wi-Fi connection.

Just remember that 250 Mbps is the theoretical maximum speed and that it’s normal for any internet connection, in practice, to provide slower upload and download speeds than what its provider advertises.

It’s also quicker for airlines to install, too. “Average Starlink install time is about 8 hours, excluding any de-installation of existing equipment, testing or aircraft modification, approximately 10 times faster than installing non-Starlink equipment,” reads a United Airlines press release.

At 85 pounds per installation, it weighs a lot less than a typical Wi-Fi kit, which tips the scales at around 300 pounds. Weight saved means (very slightly) “means the aircraft requires less fuel to operate than with other inflight providers,” as United puts it, although, with a maximum take-off weight of between 85,000 and 90,000 pounds, a 215-pound difference on the Embraer E175 is basically a rounding error.

United also claims that because Starlink constantly switches between the “world’s largest, low-earth-orbit constellation of satellites,” it ensures the “best coverage and most reliable Wi-Fi onboard” and that “weather on the ground doesn’t hinder connectivity thanks to a weather-proofed inter-satellite laser link technology that allows satellites to communicate to each other and the ground reliably.”

Perhaps fans and detractors of Musk alike can use that lightning-fast Wi-Fi to research all of DOGE’s bogus claims of savings, which even DOGE is quietly (barely) acknowledging and deleting.

At least Musk’s quasi-governmental department has “saved” enough taxpayer money for them to turn right around and give a $400 million deal to Tesla, where Musk is CEO—oh, excuse me, technoking, because he’s trying so, so hard for you to think he’s kewl—for “armored Cybertrucks.”

No conflict of interest there.