In recent times, we’ve seen a bunch of airlines announce plans to introduce Starlink Wi-Fi, which is a fantastic innovation for passengers, given that it’s high speed, and is offered on a complimentary basis. Along those lines, one airline has made it clear that it’s not interested in Starlink. This has caused an interesting online discussion, as Elon Musk and Starlink fans just can’t come to terms with Ryanair countering the industry trend.
Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary isn’t interested in Starlink
In a recent interview, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary was asked about the prospect of the airline installing Starlink Wi-Fi. His answer was simple — “you need to put an antenna on the fuselage, and it comes with a 2% fuel penalty because of the weight and drag,” and “we don’t think our passengers are willing to pay for Wi-Fi for an average one-hour flight.”
In response to this, Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink Engineering at SpaceX, fought back against this argument, claiming that “a 2% fuel impact might be true for legacy terminals, but Starlink’s terminal is much lower profile and more efficient,” and that “our analysis shows that the fuel increase to a 737-800 (which burns 800 gallons/hour) with our current design is about 0.3%.”
Elon Musk even chimed in, claiming that O’Leary is “being misinformed,” and that “I doubt they can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately, especially for a one hour flight, where the incremental drag is basically zero during the ascent phase due to the angle of attack.”
Interestingly, Musk’s AI Grok tool doesn’t contradict claims of the 2% fuel penalty (which isn’t to say it’s accurate, but…).
Ryanair is right, and people can’t come to terms with that
Say what you will about Ryanair and its passenger experience, but there’s simply no arguing that Ryanair is one of the most disciplined airlines in the world. It’s one of the most profitable airlines out there, and also one of the highest margin airlines.
The airline does this because it’s not distracted by shiny things, but instead, the airline is laser focused on keeping costs down as much as possible. Ryanair doesn’t need Starlink, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Musk obviously just doesn’t understand the airline industry, because he claims that “they will lose customers to airlines that do have Internet.”
Right, so if I need to fly from Leeds to Gdansk, I won’t fly Ryanair nonstop for $27, but instead, I’ll more than double my journey time and quadruple the cost so that I can connect on a legacy airline through a major hub?
Musk doesn’t understand why people fly Ryanair — literally no one chooses Ryanair because of the product, but instead, they choose it because of schedule and price. And that’s logical, because the “big three” global European carriers are so heavily focused on routing traffic through their global hubs.
The Elon Musk fanboys just can’t wrap their head around this, with one person claiming that “if Ryanair is running their margins so close that *Starlink* would not be cost effective I’d bail as an investor.” Au contraire. Ryanair has among the industry’s best margins precisely because it’s focused on cost, and not frills.
Some people are also trying to do math as to how much revenue Ryanair could generate if it had Starlink Wi-Fi, with ridiculously complicated formulas. This seems to overlook the fact that a condition of Starlink Wi-Fi for airlines is that they can’t charge individual consumers for the service (at least that’s my understanding).
Bottom line
Ryanair has no interest in installing Starlink Wi-Fi. While people can push back against Michael O’Leary’s claims about the 2% increase in fuel burn, it’s the second part of the statement that’s unarguably true — “we don’t think our passengers are willing to pay for Wi-Fi for an average one-hour flight.”
O’Leary is correct here, plain and simple. Ryanair’s formula is to compete on schedule and price, and not on product. That works, especially when you consider that Ryanair has no competition in a vast majority of its markets.
So as much as I love Starlink as a customer, Ryanair is one airline where it’s simply not necessary, at least for the foreseeable future. Ryanair is successful because of that discipline, and not in spite of it.
What do you make of Ryanair’s lack of interest in Starlink?
