Europe’s two largest low-cost airlines have reached opposite conclusions about SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, and the gap widened this week. easyJet confirmed on 26 October that it will install Starlink across its Airbus A320, A320neo and A321neo fleet from the first half of 2027, with the programme finished by early 2028. Days later, as Ryanair reported half-year results on Monday, chief executive Michael O’Leary repeated to reporters that the system “simply will not pay for its costs”, according to FlightGlobal.
Key facts
- easyJet, the UK-based low-cost carrier, will fit Starlink fleet-wide from the first half of 2027, finishing by early 2028.
- In January, easyJet chief executive Kenton Jarvis told Reuters “the economics aren’t quite working for us”.
- Ryanair’s half-year profit fell 15% to €2.15bn, and its fuel bill for the year to March 2028 is set to rise by roughly €2bn.
- O’Leary put the cost of Starlink at up to $250m a year including extra fuel.
- Ryanair’s own estimate is that fewer than one passenger in ten would pay for access; Starlink’s own estimate is nine in ten.
Why it matters
Satellite internet is moving from homes and ships into airline cabins, and the terms of those deals decide whether passengers pay, the airline pays, or SpaceX carries the risk. The two carriers fly similar short sectors to similarly price-conscious customers, yet landed on opposite answers — which means which aircraft already carry the service is now a question about the operator, not the route.
The fuel argument
0.3% or 2%?
The sharpest disagreement is over drag. O’Leary has cited a 2% fuel penalty from the antenna. Michael Nicolls, who runs Starlink engineering at SpaceX, said that figure applies to older terminals and put the penalty from the current design at about 0.3% on a Boeing 737-800, the type that makes up most of Ryanair’s fleet.
Doing the arithmetic
Neither company has published what that difference is worth, so here is the sum readers can check. Ryanair disclosed €3.4bn of fuel and oil costs in the six months to September. Apply SpaceX’s 0.3% and you get about €10m; apply O’Leary’s 2% and you get €68m. The gap is roughly €58m per half-year, or about €116m annualised — the rough €100m-a-year figure now attached to the dispute.
The calculation is deliberately crude: antenna drag does not scale neatly with a whole fleet’s fuel spend, and it assumes every aircraft is fitted throughout. It is still the order of magnitude O’Leary is arguing about, and the timing makes it heavier. The fifth of its fuel that Ryanair leaves unhedged roughly doubled in price to about $130 a barrel, and the airline has hedged only a quarter of next year’s requirement. Ryanair is openly discussing temporary pay freezes and operates more than 600 jets.
The demand argument
Ryanair earned €24.50 per passenger from extras in the half, flat on a year earlier, and has concluded that Wi-Fi on a flight averaging around an hour and a quarter is not something its customers will buy. Neither side’s take-up number is independent: no survey, analyst note or research report has been cited behind either the Ryanair one-in-ten estimate or the SpaceX nine-in-ten claim. The two figures are commercial positions, not measurements.
What passengers will pay
No price exists yet. easyJet told Business Traveller that access will be “entirely optional”, that Starlink will manage it, and that pricing will be set once the first aircraft are fitted — so no fare, session rate or loyalty-tier carve-out has been disclosed, and any figure circulating is speculation.
The only published European price point is zero: airBaltic offers Starlink free across its Airbus A220 fleet, under the free-to-passenger model SpaceX originally pressed on airlines. That sets the two realistic outcomes for easyJet. Either it follows airBaltic and absorbs the cost to protect ancillary spend elsewhere, or the word “optional” turns into a paid tier — the first European low-cost carrier to charge for Starlink would effectively be testing the very take-up number Ryanair and SpaceX disagree about.
What changed at easyJet
Two things shifted. The first is who carries the commercial risk. Business Traveller reports that a managed-service arrangement is emerging for some low-cost carriers, a step away from Starlink’s earlier insistence that airlines offer the service free. That moves the revenue question at least partly onto Starlink’s side of the table, which is O’Leary’s central objection. easyJet has not disclosed its terms, so the split is unknown. Commercial terms have met resistance elsewhere: in the US, Verizon’s chief executive ruled out an MVNO deal with Starlink.
The second change is ownership. Apollo agreed a £5.7bn takeover of easyJet in August at 715p a share, although the deal still needs regulatory clearance in several countries. easyJet was already moving upmarket, with a loyalty scheme due in its 2027 financial year and a sharper focus on business travel; it flew 100 million passengers in 2025 across more than 160 airports.
Starlink availability across the rest of Europe
Only 21% of Europe’s short and medium-haul jets offered any internet access in January, on CAPA figures published by Simple Flying. That share is set to climb.
Who is fitting what, and when
- airBaltic — Airbus A220 — already flying, offered free.
- easyJet — A320, A320neo, A321neo — retrofit from H1 2027, complete by early 2028.
- Wizz Air — new-generation deliveries, pre-fitted at the factory — from 2027.
- IAG — British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling — timing TBD, no schedule announced.
- Lufthansa Group — more than 850 aircraft, Eurowings included — timing TBD, no schedule announced.
The airline contracts arrive as SpaceX reports 13.6 million subscribers and a first reported profit.
The cost of waiting
Ryanair takes its first Boeing 737 MAX 10 in late January and expects 16 by the end of April. With the airline’s stance unchanged, those aircraft look set to arrive unconnected, and any later change of mind turns each one into a retrofit with the downtime that follows — the expense Wizz Air sidesteps by ordering the hardware installed before delivery.
Sourcing: O’Leary’s results-day comments were reported by FlightGlobal, easyJet’s service description by Business Traveller, Jarvis’s January remarks by Reuters, and the 21% connectivity share comes from CAPA data published by Simple Flying. The comparison was first assembled by theaviationhub. The figures have not been independently verified with the airlines; the fuel arithmetic above is this publication’s own and shown in full so it can be checked.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Starlink the only satellite internet system airlines are buying?
No. FlightGlobal reported on the day of Ryanair’s results that Finnair will fit SES satellite Wi-Fi to 18 incoming Embraer E195-E2s, and that Air Astana is installing the same system on its A321LRs. The technical distinction matters for availability: the SES installation uses an electronically steered antenna that can connect to both low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, so an aircraft can fall back to a GEO spacecraft where LEO coverage is thin. SpaceX’s published aviation specification describes a flat, electronically steered terminal that works with its low Earth orbit constellation only, which is why Starlink coverage depends on the density of that one network rather than on a second orbital layer.
Has Ryanair ruled out onboard Wi-Fi permanently?
Not permanently, and its shortlist is wider than Starlink. In January, Michael O’Leary said Ryanair remained in talks with Starlink, Amazon and Vodafone, and that the airline would add connectivity only if it lowered costs rather than adding them. He also predicted free Wi-Fi would be standard across airlines within five years — a forecast that, taken with his refusal to buy now, implies he expects hardware and bandwidth prices to fall before Ryanair commits.
What did Ryanair say its public row with Elon Musk was worth?
O’Leary has put the value of the exchange with Musk at $30m to $40m of free publicity, a valuation Ryanair has never supported with a methodology. The stunt worked because refusal was the contrarian position; with easyJet, Wizz Air, IAG and Lufthansa Group all signed up, a second round would be harder to stage.
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