Alan Joyce Ran the Worst WiFi in the Sky. Now He’s Bagging Starlink

I had to laugh on the weekend. Alan Joyce, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald warning airlines across the world not to rely on Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service and open their airlines to possible alternatives. Alan Joyce? The man who ran Qantas for fifteen years with literally the worst WiFi in the sky!

His basic concern for airlines is that they rely entirely on Elon Musk’s Starlink and exclude the option for either a simple switch to an alternative, or a secondary redundant network.

These are excellent observations, it costs a lot to fit WiFi to a plane, not least because the plane needs to be out of service while it’s fitted. And, as many airlines are now doing, they’re having a second fitment period switching from older WiFi into the newer low-earth-orbit Starlink systems.

I’d suggest his knowledge of the WiFi game comes from a whole lot of lobbying and bidding to Qantas during his time as CEO – during which he would have seen the road maps of WiFi providers, installers and the aircraft manufacturers alike.

But come on, it’s a bit rich for Alan Joyce to now be making claims against Starlink when Qantas has had the absolute worst WiFi of an International Airline. Only this last few months did the company complete the roll out of (older, aged tech) WiFi on their 787’s and their A380’s are just now starting that process – again, not Starlink.

During Joyce’s time at the helm, the best he could offer was reliable WiFi on domestic routes, when in reality the place WiFi is needed most is on long-haul journeys.

I’m no fan of Elon Musk, and I welcome Amazon’s LEO service when it gets off the ground and hope that in-flight is part of their long term plans.

But how about Alan Joyce just lives off the interest on his millions and just leaves the WiFi strategy to someone who knows what customers want.