{"id":50438,"date":"2026-05-14T17:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/delta-wont-use-starlink-elon-musk-is-not-happy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:41:13","slug":"delta-wont-use-starlink-elon-musk-is-not-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/delta-wont-use-starlink-elon-musk-is-not-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"Delta won&#8217;t use Starlink. Elon Musk is not happy."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69ebe4e0a98bc8fdc096eae9?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Elon Musk in 2025\"\/><figcaption>Elon Musk&#039;s Starlink internet is being installed across scores of airlines, but not Delta.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Delta Air Lines is one of few carriers opting against installing Starlink internet on its planes.<\/li>\n<li>The airline instead tapped Amazon LEO in March to become its in-flight WiFi provider.<\/li>\n<li>Elon Musk hit out at Delta&#039;s choice on X, saying it would be &quot;painful, difficult and expensive.&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Elon Musk doesn&#039;t seem pleased with Delta Air Lines choosing a rival internet provider to Starlink.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of airlines around the world have struck deals with Starlink to give passengers free, high-speed WiFi. It connects to a constellation of over 10,000 satellites, helping provide connectivity in remote areas, such as over the ocean.<\/p>\n<p>However, Delta instead tapped Amazon LEO in March to become its in-flight WiFi provider. Amazon&#039;s service has launched about 300 satellites so far.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Musk replied to an X post that suggested Delta chose Amazon because it wanted customers to connect via its own Delta Sync portal.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;SpaceX requires that there be no annoying &#039;portal&#039; to use Starlink,&quot; Musk posted. &quot;Starlink WiFi must just work effortlessly every time, as though you were at home.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Delta wanted to make it painful, difficult and expensive for their customers. Hard to see how that is a winning strategy,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>A Delta spokesperson told Business Insider that &quot;the assertion in question is not accurate.&quot;The airline said it chose Amazon&#039;s Leo connectivity service over Starlink for &quot;several reasons,&quot; including the potential for a &quot;broader partnership&quot; beyond just in-flight WiFi.<\/p>\n<p>It added that Amazon met Delta&#039;s technical requirements and shared its vision for the &quot;next era of connected travel,&quot; while adding that Delta&#039;s strategy is to equip different aircraft with the technology that best fits each fleet.<\/p>\n<p>Delta also clarified that passengers would still have been able to access the Delta Sync portal via a SkyMiles login.<\/p>\n<p>To the last point, while Starlink has pushed for a more seamless in-flight WiFi experience with minimal friction between passengers and the web, airlines using the service still route access through their own branded systems.<\/p>\n<p>United Airlines&#039; Starlink access, for example, is tied to its MileagePlus platform \u2014 with similar setups at Alaska Airlines and Qatar Airways.<\/p>\n<p>Delta isn&#039;t saying its portal was an obstacle. It seems to want a deeper level of control over the ecosystem surrounding onboard internet than SpaceX may have preferred.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Qatar has faced similar decisions in its Starlink strategy. Xia Cai, Qatar Airways&#039; SVP of product development and design, talked at a 2024 APEX event about the airline&#039;s approach to customer engagement through its Starlink connectivity.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There has to be a connection. Is it a transient connection? Or is it actually something that you&#039;re going to build to create an experience, which Delta has done really well on their Sync platform?&quot; Cai said, the aviation website Paxex.Aero reported. &quot;How do you engage [with passengers]?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>United is actively installing SpaceX technology and expects the rollout to be completed by the end of 2027. Delta&#039;s planned next-generation connectivity project with Amazon&#039;s Kuiper network is not expected to begin until 2028.<\/p>\n<p>It isn&#039;t the first time this year that Musk has taken umbrage with an airline.<\/p>\n<p>In January, Ryanair CEO Michael O&#039;Leary said he wasn&#039;t interested in Starlink, suggesting that installing the terminals on airplane fuselages would increase drag and, in turn, fuel costs.<\/p>\n<p>Musk and O&#039;Leary then engaged in a dayslong war of words, including Musk suggesting he could buy Ryanair, and calling for O&#039;Leary&#039;s firing.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk&#039;s Starlink internet is being installed across scores of airlines, but not Delta. Bloomberg\/Getty Images Delta Air Lines is one of few carriers opting against installing Starlink internet on its planes. The airline instead tapped Amazon LEO in March to become its in-flight WiFi provider. Elon Musk hit out at Delta&#039;s choice on X, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}