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Qatar Airways Flies The World’s First Starlink-Equipped 787-9

With 150 widebodies fitted and over 23 million passengers online since 2024, the Gulf carrier is close to making free satellite Wi-Fi standard fleetwide.

Published

2 months ago

August 21, 2026

Nour Nasir

qatar airways flies the world's first starlink equipped 787-9

For most of commercial aviation’s modern history, closing the cabin door meant leaving the internet behind. Qatar Airways has spent nearly two years dismantling that idea, and this week it logged another first.

The Doha-based carrier has become the first airline in the world to operate a Starlink-equipped Boeing 787-9, and has finished fitting its 787-8 sub-fleet in seven months. That takes its Starlink-equipped widebody count to 150. More than half of its 787 fleet now carries the system, with the rest on track for completion by the end of 2026.

The airline upgraded its Boeing 777s in just nine months and its Airbus A350s in eight, and now operates the world’s first and largest Starlink-enabled fleets of all three types. The wider program has passed 83 percent completion, with up to 323 Starlink flights operating daily.

Uptake has been swift. More than 23 million passengers have connected since the service launched in October 2024, across over 86,000 flights. At speeds of up to 500 Mbps, SpaceX’s low-Earth-orbit constellation delivers something closer to home broadband than the sluggish, metered Wi-Fi that long defined flying. Qatar Airways was also the first carrier to offer Starlink on long-haul and ultra-long-haul routes across six continents, from the Americas and Australasia to gateways across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Also Read: Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade

There are, of course, a few caveats. The Wi-Fi is free and gate-to-gate, but access runs through Privilege Club authentication or enrollment, making onboard connectivity a subtle funnel into the airline’s loyalty program. Gate-to-gate coverage can also lapse at certain airports because of local regulatory requirements, and aircraft assignments on some routes may change for operational reasons.

With all that being said, it’s clear that satellite broadband is beginning to shift from novelty to standard fit, and competition among long-haul carriers is becoming less about whether the service exists, and more about bandwidth — meaning long flights are no longer an excuse to be unreachable.

Related Topics:Boeing Qatar Qatar Airways Starlink

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Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.