Who actually runs airline Wi-Fi

The airline sells it, but one of these systems delivers it, and the orbit it flies in decides whether your video call survives.

Starlink

Low Earth orbit (LEO), ~550 km

roughly 20-50 ms · 40 airlines in the registry

Viasat

Geostationary (GEO), ~35,786 km

roughly 600 ms and up · 39 airlines in the registry

Panasonic Avionics

Geostationary (GEO), multi-orbit on new fits

roughly 600 ms and up on GEO · 46 airlines in the registry

Intelsat

Geostationary (GEO), multi-orbit with OneWeb

roughly 600 ms and up on GEO · 14 airlines in the registry

SES / Open Orbits

Medium Earth orbit (MEO) + GEO

roughly 120-150 ms on MEO · 12 airlines in the registry

Anuvu

Geostationary (GEO)

roughly 600 ms and up · 5 airlines in the registry

SITA OnAir / Inmarsat GX

Geostationary (GEO) Ka-band

roughly 600 ms and up · 22 airlines in the registry

Eutelsat OneWeb

Low Earth orbit (LEO), ~1,200 km

roughly 70-100 ms · 6 airlines in the registry

Amazon Kuiper

Low Earth orbit (LEO)

roughly 20-50 ms expected · 1 airline in the registry

See these verdicts while you book

The free FlightWifi extension shows them inline on Google Flights, Skyscanner and Soar, matched to the exact aircraft on your flight.