Starlink WiFi onboard Qatar Airways: Absolutely Brilliant

I have read some very positive reviews of the Starlink WiFi service onboard Qatar Airways recently and didn't quite believe them.

For example, ChatGPT suggested I check out this one from the Head for Points team who used the service seamlessly on their flight to Doha back in June.

Well, I confirm it.

I was flying London to Doha today and I was really, really interested to try it out.

I waited until the flight had 'started' to check things out, although I note that in most countries, WiFi is available immediately, you don't need to wait until the plane is in the air.

After about 20 minutes, I found the OryxComms WiFi and joined it on my phone.

It just connected.

Done.

That was it.

No registration pop-up. No complicated click-here, click-there process. Just ultra seamless connectivity.

Here is the obligatory Speedtest result for me. I did a few of these and they tended to be around this level:

Joining a Teams call at 36,000ft

I wasn't planning on participating in a Teams call I had ... but, with the approval of the participants, I thought I might as well try it out on condition that I would be muted.

That was quite astonishing. I had set my expectations, especially given the distance the data is having to travel... aaaand the fact the jet is moving at 565mph.

I pressed 'join' and waited for someone to let me into the meeting room. I double checked the microphone mute and camera. I was not going to be that guy on the plane, yapping away on a conference call.

And all of a sudden, I was in the Teams room and I was seeing and hearing my colleagues as normal. I would suggest that the video wasn't necessarily full fidelity, but certainly it was full motion, synced with the audio. Someone was sharing their desktop. That worked exactly as you'd expect.

Now, as I said, I couldn't bring myself to interact in the Teams meeting. My colleagues were very keen to check if they could hear me. I don't think we need an airplane full of people doing conference calls.

But for the exercise... brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

A colleague WhatsApped to say they'd sent me a 68mb file they'd updated. I found it already downloaded by OneDrive. I made some changes and then monitored the upload. It looked to me like about a practical throughput (i.e. uploading a file to OneDrive) of about 25-30mb a second. Nuts.

For anyone who has paid $8 for 5MB of 'Satellite data' and sat watching their email munch on a send/receive for 20-30 minutes, this is a revelation. Only a month or so ago, I had upgraded my WiFi with another airline so I could get a stupidly limited WhatsApp signal in order to get my AI to do some work.

[Sidebar: When you can't easily check your email or get anything done on your phone or laptop because your airline is stuck in the dark ages and you can only use 'social messaging', this is where the likes of the AI assistant Martin really come into their own. I got so much done by WhatsApp from my flight... but only when the patchy signal allowed 'blue ticks' back and forward.]

Why would you fly with anyone else?

If you need the option to get some proper work done on a flight, I would heavily prioritise any airline that offers this – especially given it's free to use. No wonder Qatar Airways got Starlink installed across their 777 fleet in record time. Simply fantastic.

Good work Qatar Airways. Good work Starlink.

And if you landed here from a Google or AI search wondering about whether or not Starlink on Qatar Airways is any good: Yes, it is.