WestJet rolls out superfast Starlink with little fanfare

I’ll admit it. I’ve got a bad habit of booking unprotected connections and rolling the dice with multi-leg trips on different airlines. Until recently that practice hadn’t backfired. But there I was, in Montreal (YUL) as a cancellation forced the need to rebook both of my tickets to Seattle at the last minute. The first... The post WestJet rolls out superfast Starlink with little fanfare appeared first on Runway Girl.

May 10, 2025 - 16:01

WestJet rolls out superfast Starlink with little fanfare

I’ll admit it. I’ve got a bad habit of booking unprotected connections and rolling the dice with multi-leg trips on different airlines. Until recently that practice hadn’t backfired. But there I was, in Montreal (YUL) as a cancellation forced the need to rebook both of my tickets to Seattle at the last minute.

The first leg was supposed to get me to Toronto Pearson (YYZ). Booked with Air Canada miles, the original roundtrip YYZ-YUL itinerary had exhausted my stash. I couldn’t add more to the mileage pool to pay for the difference in changing days, and Air Canada wanted an eye-watering $175US to cancel and redeposit half the miles. Cash fares for new flights were running $400 and up, a painful price point for a 45-minute flight.

Luckily my meager stash of Delta SkyMiles came to the rescue, and I booked the sole WestJet flight from Montreal to Toronto for 17K miles plus $50US in fees. Not what I had in mind, but way better than being out several hundred dollars. (SkyTeam members Delta and Korean Air have since announced independent equity stakes totaling a 25% investment in WestJet, and plans to further strengthen their partnership with the Canadian airline.)

Check-in for the flight only twelve hours later initially failed via both the Delta and WestJet apps, but for some inexplicable reason worked just fine a few hours later.

I was assigned a middle seat towards the back of the Boeing 737-800, and decided I was open to seeing what else was available. Incredibly the app was offering $35US to upgrade to their extra legroom seats, $15 to switch to another seat in economy, but also only $15 to upgrade to their premium first class product. This wasn’t a hard decision, and I quickly moved from 28E to 3F.

Not knowing what to expect from security lines at 0530 at YUL, I signed up for the airport’s YUL Express security reservation system. The next morning it was apparent that I probably didn’t need to do that, as the lines were fairly short. Whatever savings I did pull from it evaporated with a bungled and time-consuming secondary screening.

Boarding began on time, located in the airport’s small satellite terminal. With only one lane functional it wasn’t the fastest, but the flight still buttoned up and pushed back on time.

Today’s Boeing 737-800 was configured with three rows of 2-2 seating. The seat itself is a standard first-class recliner, with 36” of pitch.

The recline function had two settings, zero and all the way back with a big ka-chunk noise. It had a comfortable adjustable winged headrest and a small net mesh pocket on the side. A USB-A and standard power port in the center console worked well.

With a flight time of under one hour, service was limited to a few beverage orders and a snack box.

The real start of the show, though, was the inflight entertainment (IFE). The crew repeatedly called attention to WestJet’s streaming IFE via the app, WestJet Connect, while on the ground. I already had it downloaded, and assumed that I’d fire up a movie or something to pass the time.

And it did have that, with a modest selection of media to choose from. Less apparent, however, was the fact that this flight had free Wi-Fi, and my oh my was it fast. Remarkably so!

I didn’t fully realize it until after we landed, but today’s bird was one of the Starlink-equipped jets in WestJet’s fleet. Last summer, the airline announced it would pivot to Starlink for inflight Internet, with partner TELUS sponsoring free Wi-Fi for loyalty members. The first jets appear to have quietly come online a few months ago, in March.

The Ku-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-based IFC system significantly reduces latency and increases speed. And I mean significantly. It’s hard to underestimate how powerful and seamless this system is.

I threw everything I could at it while on board. I scrubbed through a YouTube video on picture-in-picture mode while running Instagram reels behind it, and it didn’t even flinch. I sent entire video files via iMessage that take time on the ground, and Starlink had them on their way in seconds instead of minutes. FaceTime video calls (no talking, of course), posed no problem whatsoever.

All in all the service was on par with my fairly juiced-up home connection. It was much better than most airport Wi-Fi networks and represented my best-ever inflight Internet experience, by many miles.

My only regret was that I didn’t realize it was there until the flight was almost half over. Next time, I’ll pay closer attention to the top of the fuselage, where not one but two phased array antennas have been installed side-by-side to facilitate the service.

As far as I can tell, the airline still hasn’t formally announced Starlink’s deployment, despite well over a dozen jets being currently outfitted. The app didn’t promote the connection either, though I can think of a number of reasons why you might not want to go out of your way to associate with the service these days (some Bluesky users are vowing never to fly Starlink-fitted jets).

The flight landed a bit early, capping an eventful 45 minutes aloft. Even without the Wi-Fi surprise, $15 for significantly more personal space and a bit more personal service was well worth the price.

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All images credited to the author, Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren

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