If you’ve ever heard of Ookla, you know them for one thing – their network speedtests they run worldwide. It’s become a hallmark benchmark used by telcos for bragging rights on network performance. The only remaining frontier is up in the air with in-flight Wi-Fi. If you’ve travelled significantly, you’ve seen how ‘fast’ it is (paired with other challenges based on supported aircraft).

Ookla has done the next best thing – putting them to the test across multiple airlines worldwide. The verdict? Two airlines stand out based on Ookla’s testing data – Qatar Airways and Hawaiian Airlines – with the former from the Middle East region. There is another one from the region, but more on it later.

Pushing Airline’s In-Flight Wi-Fi to Limits

From their blog, Ookla’s testing methodology for their in-flight Wi-Fi speedtest involved a mix of GEO, LEO, medium earth orbit (MEO), multi-orbit/hybrid network providers, and even ground-based LTE. This is quite comprehensive, even if it sounds very technical and confusing. I’ll let the official charts from Ookla paint the results in the below gallery.

Some highlights from this with added clarity

• Qatar Airways and Hawaiian Airlines use Starlink’s low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to deliver their inflight Wi-Fi, resulting in download speeds and upload speeds and latency that are better than the other airlines.
• Qatar Airways, along with Starlink as one of its connectivity service providers, also operates planes with geo-stationary orbit GEO connectivity. This is most evident in the multiserver latency results. Added note is that SITA Switzerland is also one of their In-flight Connectivity Service Providers.
• Qatar Airways’ median latency is similar to Hawaiian Airlines, but the former’s 10th percentile (the laggiest experience) is much higher. That alone keeps it in the same group of other GEO-supported airlines.
• Etihad Airways also makes the list but their download speeds don’t help at all.
• Looking at the upload speeds alongside the high-latency results, real-time uses like gaming or video calling are likely not possible for many of the airlines that offer inflight Wi-Fi.

Live examples

If you can’t take Ookla’s word for their report, I’ve got a few scenarios that put the Starlink Wi-Fi in the spotlight. I run a podcast with my co-host Khan (The Geeky Nomads), and we’ve done two episodes filmed in the air as he travelled at 36,000ft.

A testament to the connectivity, we just published our latest one with aviation consultant Shashank Nigam (embedded below), taking you into the discussion on in-flight connectivity as well and how far it has grown from the fee-based to free perk.

Barely any connectivity issues and it was all in FullHD. You can watch more on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Podcasts/Amazon Music/Anghami. Another scenario is the gaming tournament the airline held in May 2025, which is quite a bandwidth-intensive act.

Parting words

The tech has come quite far yet it’s still not seamless. It’s also a costly endeavor and time investment. However, you can’t deny the significant advantage and opportunity it provides.

Starlink looks to be the main empowering variable, since they are the service providers for some of the airlines. That doesn’t mean the competition will stay dormant. The likes of Viasat/Inmarsat (who are providing the upcoming Riyadh Air’s in-flight Wi-Fi connectivity) may spur airlines to really invest resources in improving their offering.

Don’t expect Qatar Airways to stay quiet against the competition. They have already completed the rollout across their Boeing 777 fleet (source) and have set their sighs to cover their entire Airbus A350 fleet, ensuring majority of travellers enjoy the perk.

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One more thing, a disclosure – I used to be employed at Qatar Airways; worked on the airline’s social media team for 11 years (I joined just few months after they created it). I was there when they made the announcement of using Starlink for becoming the in-flight Wi-Fi provider in May 2024.