Travelers stepping on board a regional United Airlines flight will have access to a newly upgraded onboard service: super-fast Wi-Fi.
The carrier has now equipped more than 300 of its regional jets with ultra-high-speed onboard Wi-Fi from Starlink.
That means that Starlink is available across most of United’s regional Embraer E-175 planes, and passengers can now access Starlink on 25% of the airline’s daily departures, which is about 1,200 flights.
So far, the Wi-Fi service has been a game-changer for in-flight connectivity. Starlink is much more reliable than previous Wi-Fi offerings and allows passengers to stay connected throughout their entire journey from gate to gate.
Fliers can seamlessly use Starlink Wi-Fi across their devices mid-flight the same way they do on the ground, including streaming movies, shows, and music, watching live sports, as well as online shopping, playing games, editing documents in real time, and more, all with no lag.
Travelers using Starlink can access speeds up to 250 megabits per second, which is a whopping 50 times faster than Wi-Fi speeds across other regional aircraft. Plus, Starlink is free to use for passengers who have an account with United’s MileagePlus loyalty program (which is also free to create).
The Chicago-based carrier first began adding the upgraded in-flight connectivity to its regional aircraft in March 2025. Since then, United has operated 129,000 flights on Starlink-equipped aircraft with more than 7 million passengers and 3.7 devices powered by the new Wi-Fi provider.
United’s Starlink-equipped regional aircraft currently serve numerous domestic destinations, like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and more.
Passengers are taking notice of the improved onboard connectivity, with United’s customer satisfaction scores for Wi-Fi nearly doubling across its Starlink-equipped planes.
With the positive response from fliers, United plans to accelerate its rollout of Starlink to even more aircraft this year, including on board its mainline fleet of Boeing 737-800 planes. By the end of 2026, the carrier plans to equip more than 500 mainline aircraft with Starlink capability, which would mean more than 800 planes across its entire fleet would be outfitted with the ultra-fast Wi-Fi.
In October, United began operating its first mainline flight with Starlink between Newark and Houston. The airline says it’s able to install the high-speed Wi-Fi on about 15 mainline planes per month.
Additionally, United says it’s pursuing FAA approval to install Starlink across many of its aircraft models, such as its Boeing 737-900ERs, its Airbus A321 family of jets, and its Boeing 777s—all of which operate longer haul domestic and international routes, including to destinations across the Atlantic and Pacific.
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