Report: American Airlines Expands Starlink Plans To Full Boeing Fleet—Could It Become More Premium Than Delta?

American Airlines’ Starlink plans now appear to include Boeing 737s, 777s and 787s, expanding beyond the Airbus rollout announced in May. Getting the best wifi in the sky onto its long haul aircraft would fix one of American’s worst product weaknesses—and help it challenge Delta’s premium reputation while Delta waits until (at least) 2028 to begin installing Amazon Leo. Aviation watchdog JonNYC reports that American’s plan now appears to include all three Boeing aircraft families. That would take Starlink across the aircraft that make up American’s mainline fleet, rather than leaving it as an Airbus-only upgrade. AA: Original Starlink announce was for Airbus narrowbody planes. I'd say the plan now appears to include 737, 777 and 787 as well.Unconfirmed. — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) October 1, 2026 When I covered American’s original announcement, my biggest disappointment was that this would be only Airbus narrowbodies, beginning in the first quarter of 2027. Starlink On American’s Widebodies Would Be A Huge Improvement American’s domestic satellite wifi has generally been pretty good. Their older Panasonic-equipped widebodies are terrible. It’s often not worth paying less for a ticket while losing the ability to work – the value of that productive time is frequently much greater than the difference in cost of the ticket. Starlink satellites are much closer to earth, so the signal has less distance to travel. The lower latency makes ordinary browsing feel instantaneous. And a plane full of passengers can use the connection. I’ve written for years that wifi influences which airline I choose. I avoid Southwest and United whenever possible until they complete their Starlink rollouts, because most of their non-Starlink planes are much worse than what American and Delta offer today. Meanwhile, Delta’s Amazon Leo agreement starts with 500 aircraft, with installations beginning in 2028 if Amazon’s product is available by then. It is not yet in beta. Half their fleet would be left out. flying on Delta is a high-status move because it signals that you're already post-economic and don't have to work on the plane i can see many OpenAI and Anthropic employees switching to Delta after the IPOs — John Palmer (@johnpalmer) October 1, 2026 American Has Already Improved More Than Its Reputation Suggests In June I went through 18 months of changes at American. Even I was surprised by how much they’d done. The airline still hadn’t put together a clear enough story about what it was becoming, but there were real improvements. Better premium cabins. The new Boeing 787-9s have attractive business class suites and much better premium economy. When I flew the media preview of the refurbished 777-300ER, with its 70 business class suites, I found a nice product and the airline actually making a case for paying more. Their new domestic cabins are nicer, too. Better lounges and food. The Philadelphia Flagship Lounge and their Admirals Clubs opened since 2021 are gorgeous. And they have a pipeline of new lounges coming. American has improved lounge dining, replaced its awful coffee with Lavazza, and upgraded onboard wine and bedding (though the wine has more to go I feel). More investment in the seats most people buy. American has announced the return of seatback screens, and more extra legroom coach. The screen rollout don’t start until 2028. They’re finally reversing decisions that made their planes less desirable. Starlink also delivers something valuable to passengers in back. Most customers experience an airline in coach, and that’s where much of its reputation gets formed. More sensible policies. They’ve improved standby options and begun holding flights for connecting passengers when they can do so without disrupting the operation. They’re also improving the app and rebooking tools. American spent years taking things away from customers while trying to compete with Spirit and Frontier. That never made sense for an airline with American’s costs. They need customers willing to pay more. A business class suite, better food and bedding, a nicer lounge and internet that lets you work for the entire flight make a package worth preferring and should help American close its margin gap, though it needs more flights where customers who pay the most are. They’ll be growing in Los Angeles as they regain gates there. New York remains a gap, though I’ve laid out how they can really compete there even with limited slots. American Could Displace Delta As A Premium Airline? United CEO Scott Kirby claims (without warrant) that there’s room for only two premium airlines. Delta still has better operational reliability than American. Its Delta One lounges are excellent, and it already has seatback screens on aircraft where American passengers are waiting for them. But United is considered a premium airline, and its on-time performance advantage over American hasn’t been enormous. In Cirium’s full-year 2025 results, Delta arrived on time 80.90% of the time, United 78.77%, and American 76.43%. Growing in Los Angeles, partnering more closely with Alaska and finding a way to compete in New York (and Chicago) with a better product – American’s inflight meals are already better than Delta’s – could position American to displace Delta if they’d just accelerate the introduction of seatback screens (a baseline expectation of passengers) and deliver Starlink wifi while Delta winds up offering among the worst wifi in the industry for an extended period Topics on this page