Qatar Airways just made history by launching the world’s first Starlink-equipped Boeing 787

Qatar Airways has just crossed a line no airline had managed to reach before.

It’s not something you spot from the outside of the plane.

But you will notice it when your flying experience becomes significantly smoother.

For the first time ever, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner is flying with Starlink internet.

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Qatar Airways just made history with the world’s first Starlink-equipped Boeing 787

This is a genuine first for commercial aviation.

Qatar Airways has become the first airline in the world to install Starlink WiFi on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with three 787-8 aircraft already flying passengers. 

The Boeing 787 is one of the most common long-haul planes in the sky. 

It’s used on routes where flights stretch for 10, 12, even 15 hours. 

And for years, those flights have been known for one thing: painfully slow WiFi.

Starlink is designed to fix that.

Instead of connecting to satellites parked far away from Earth, Starlink uses low-Earth orbit satellites that sit much closer. 

The result is lower delay and much faster speeds. 

Qatar says passengers can see speeds of up to 500Mbps, which is fast enough to stream, video call, or scroll without constant buffering.

And this isn’t Qatar’s first move with Starlink, either. 

The airline has already rolled the system out across its Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 fleets, becoming the first carrier to do that as well.

So far, more than 11 million passengers have used Starlink on Qatar flights. 

Of those, over 10 million flew in 2025 alone – nearly half of all Starlink aviation users worldwide last year.

What this means for passengers and future flights

On long flights, onboard WiFi usually slows to a crawl once everyone connects.

That’s where Starlink changes the experience, because it’s built to handle heavy use without speeds falling apart the moment a cabin fills up.

At the same time, the bigger story for Qatar Airways isn’t just connection speed –  it’s how quickly the airline has moved. 

Starlink was introduced in October 2024, and within just eight months the entire A350 fleet was upgraded. 

By the time the Boeing 777 fleet was added, the full rollout across both aircraft types had wrapped up in about 14 months total.

Qatar says that’s the fastest widebody Starlink rollout ever.

With the Dreamliner now included, nearly 120 widebody aircraft are already flying with Starlink, covering more than half of Qatar’s long-haul fleet. 

And this isn’t where it stops. 

The airline currently operates 32 787-8s and 25 787-9s, with even more Dreamliners still on order, including the larger 787-10.

Put together, that means more future flights where slow, unreliable WiFi simply isn’t part of the experience anymore.

All this to say, at 35,000 feet, staying online will soon be the norm.

So get ready to say goodbye to the hours spent twiddling your thumbs, waiting for the plane to finally land.

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