Ryanair continues to resist Musk's Starlink on short flights despite buyout threat

Ryanair isn’t installing in-flight Wi-Fi anytime soon, even as competitors race to equip their aircraft with Starlink connectivity. The reason? The economics don’t work for budget-conscious passengers on short European flights.

Installing Starlink would require fitting aircraft with an antenna that creates a 2% fuel drag, increasing costs for an airline built on razor-thin margins, Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said Monday. And passengers don’t want to pay for Internet on flights that average just two hours.

“I’ve been looking at this for the 23 years I’ve been in Ryanair, it’s getting better and better every year but it’s just not there yet,” Sorahan said during a Bloomberg TV interview. Most passengers just watch pre-downloaded movies on their devices anyway.

The battle of the billionaires

Sorahan’s comments follow a highly publicized spat between Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and Elon Musk over Starlink’s economics. The week-long exchange, where both called each other “idiots,” actually boosted Ryanair’s bookings by 2% to 3%, O’Leary said last week.

Musk escalated things by posting a poll asking whether he should buy Ryanair and “restore Ryan as their rightful ruler.” The poll’s final results show 76.5% voted YES while 23% said NO.

O’Leary shot back that non-EU citizens can’t own majority stakes in European airlines, and that Musk should “join the back of a very, very, very, very long queue” of people who’ve insulted him, including his “four teenage children.”

“It’s pretty much behind us at this point in time,” Sorahan said. “It was two big idiots having a bit of fun with each other.”

Ryanair’s position looks increasingly isolated

January 2026 saw a wave of major announcements.

Lufthansa Group is equipping all 850 aircraft across Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines with Starlink starting in the second half of 2026. That’s Europe’s largest deployment.

Alaska Airlines is ahead of schedule, with installations already operational on regional jets. Qatar Airways has equipped nearly 60% of its fleet. Emirates expects full coverage by mid-2027.

British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus will start installations in 2026.

Ryanair’s doing fine without it. The Irish carrier upgraded its fiscal 2026 guidance Monday thanks to strong demand and earlier-than-expected Boeing deliveries. It now expects traffic to grow 4% to almost 208 million passengers, up from a previous forecast of 207 million.

Fares are running ahead of last year too, with full-year growth now expected to exceed the previously guided 7% increase.

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