SpaceX employees, including its CEO Elon Musk, shaded American Airlines on social media this past weekend due to the company’s reported talks with Amazon’s Starlink rival, Leo.<\/p>\n
Starlink has been adopted by several airlines, including United Airlines<\/a>, Qatar Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, WestJet, Air France, airBaltic, and others. It has gained notoriety as an extremely solid, dependable, and reliable option for airline travel, as traditional options frequently cause users to lose connection to the internet.<\/p>\n Many airlines have made the switch<\/a>, while others continue to mull the options available to them. American Airlines is one of them.<\/p>\n A report from\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> indicates the airline is thinking of going with a Starlink rival owned by Amazon, called Leo. It was previously referred to as Project Kuiper.<\/p>\n American CEO Robert Isom said (via Bloomberg<\/em>):<\/p>\n \u201cWhile there\u2019s Starlink, there are other low-Earth-orbit satellite opportunities that we can look at. We\u2019re making sure that American is going to have what our customers need.”<\/em><\/p>\n Isom also said American has been in touch with Amazon about installing Leo on its aircraft, but he would not reveal the status of any discussions with the company.<\/p>\n The report caught the attention of Michael Nicolls, the Vice President of Starlink Engineering at SpaceX, who said:<\/p>\n “Only fly on airlines with good connectivity\u2026 and only one source of good connectivity at the moment\u2026”<\/em><\/p>\n CEO Elon Musk replied to Nicolls by stating that American Airlines risks losing “a lot of customers if their connectivity solution fails.”<\/p>\n American Airlines will lose a lot of customers if their connectivity solution fails<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n