Royal Air Maroc to equip more than half its fleet with Starlink wi-fi
Casablanca-based carrier will become the first African operator to adopt the SpaceX service when it starts installations early next year.
Royal Air Maroc will begin installing SpaceX’s Starlink in-flight wi-fi service on 41 of its aircraft in early 2027, making it the first African carrier to adopt the solution.
The Moroccan airline will provide the service free of charge to members of its Safar Flyer loyalty programme.
Starlink uses a network of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to provide high-speed, low-latency in-flight connectivity with global coverage.
Royal Air Maroc chief executive Hamid Addou says the decision to install Starlink across more than half of the carrier’s fleet is “part of a multi-year plan that includes fleet renewal, cabin redesign and a complete modernisation of the customer experience, both on the ground and in the air”.
The airline operates about 70 aircraft, including Boeing 737 Max 8s, 787s, 737-800s, Embraer 190s and ATR 72-600s. It does not specify which aircraft types will be among the 41 to have Starlink installed.
Placing next-generation connectivity “at the heart of its service offering” helps to “lay the foundations for a more modern, competitive African aviation industry”, says the carrier.
Lauren Dreyer, vice-president of Starlink business operations at SpaceX, says of the agreement: “By becoming the first airline on the continent to offer this technology, Royal Air Maroc will enable its passengers to enjoy the same high-speed, low-latency experience that is already transforming travel on other continents.”
SpaceX already counts a growing list of North American airlines among its Starlink customers, including Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, WestJet and charter carrier JSX.
It also signed a deal earlier this year with Indigo Partners to install Starlink on more than 1,000 aircraft operated by five of the carriers it backs: Frontier Airlines, Mexico’s Volaris, Latin America’s JetSmart, Philippines-based Cebu Pacific and Central European budget carrier Wizz Air.
Elsewhere in Europe, Starlink customers include IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air Baltic.
A rival LEO-only in-flight connectivity service from Amazon counts JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines among its customer base. Amazon and SpaceX have been taking market share from incumbent satellite-based in-flight wi-fi providers, which have been increasingly offering multi-orbit services to airlines in response.
For example, Luxembourg-based SES’s electronically-steered array (ESA) antenna system switches between Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO and SES’s geostationary satellites to provide low-latency global coverage.
FlightGlobal has contacted Royal Air Maroc for further details.
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