JetBlue plans to become the first airline to sign on with Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite broadband service, promising faster and more reliable inflight Wi-Fi.
The airline announced Thursday that the technology will be introduced to a portion of its fleet starting in 2027, providing a boost to Fly-Fi, JetBlue’s free, high-speed Wi-Fi program.
The news comes on the heels of a boast this week by Amazon executives, who showed the satellite constellation is capable of transmitting data at speeds in excess of a gigabit per second.
Project Kuiper is built around a constellation of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit — connected to each other by high-speed optical links that will create a mesh network in space — and linked to a global network of antennas, fiber, and internet connection points on the ground.
Amazon has launched 102 Project Kuiper satellites so far, with another 27 due to go up as early as this month. The current schedule calls for half of the planned 3,232-satellite constellation to be deployed within the next year.
The tech giant said it intends to begin delivering satellite broadband services to customers by the end of this year. Eventually, it aims to offer high-speed internet access to millions of people around the globe.
JetBlue called the agreement with Project Kuiper “an exciting leap forward” in onboard connectivity.
“With Project Kuiper, we’re working to ensure customers can enjoy fast, reliable internet wherever they are — at home or 35,000 feet in the air — and we’re pumped to bring that to life with JetBlue,” Panos Panay, senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services, said in a statement.
Project Kuiper will have to catch up to SpaceX’s Starlink network, which currently dominates the market for broadband access via satellites, including on airlines. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines announced last month that it planned to launch an upgrade to its inflight Wi-Fi experience with Starlink.
In other sky-high Wi-Fi news, Bellevue, Wash.-based wireless carrier T-Mobile and Southwest Airlines announced a new partnership delivering free unlimited Wi-Fi for all Rapid Rewards members beginning Oct. 24.
Southwest said that with more than 800 aircraft, it will be the largest domestic airline to implement free Wi-Fi on every flight this year.
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