“I think he misinterpreted our words”: after the controversy with Elon Musk, the boss of Ryanair ready to equip his planes with Starlink

The boss of the Irish airline Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, said Wednesday he was convinced that free Internet access on board planes will become widespread in “four or five years”, thanks to technological progress. A few days ago, the tone was raised with Elon Musk, who offers a satellite Internet offer with Starlink, on the subject.

“I have no doubt that within four or five years Wi-Fi will be available on all planes as the technology improves and it will cost virtually nothing,” Michael O’Leary said at a press conference in Lisbon.

During the presentation of his activity in Portugal for this summer, he returned to the recent controversy which pitted him against Elon Musk for refusing to use the Starlink system to connect Ryanair planes to the Internet.

The conflict arose after an interview with Michael O’Leary where he estimated that the Starlink network could cost his company up to $250 million per year. Elon Musk, boss of Starlink, reacted on his social network

Ryanair ready to work with Starlink

“I think he misinterpreted our comments and believed that we were somehow criticizing the Starlink system. The Starlink system is a very good system,” he said on Wednesday. “We have been talking with on-board Wi-Fi providers for three years: Starlink, Amazon World Services and Vodafone. The technology is just not quite there yet,” he added.

According to him, these systems still require external antennas on planes which increase the fuel bill, but as soon as a solution other than external antennas is found, free Internet access will become inevitable. “The only disagreement with Starlink is that they think people will pay for this service,” Michael O’Leary said. We think not. We believe we are best placed to know. »