United Airlines is adding a custom Spotify app to its seatback displays, letting passengers sign in to their own accounts and stream their personal libraries, playlists, and video podcasts during flights. The carrier is building the app as a native feature of its seatback screens. The rollout runs on Starlink satellite Wi-Fi, which United is currently installing across its entire fleet.
The integration marks a change from older in-flight entertainment systems, which assumed planes had no internet connection and stored movies and music directly on board. With Starlink connectivity, passengers can stream content live from the internet in the same way they do at home. United said travelers can listen through the seatback display or on their own mobile devices.
Mark Muren, United's managing director for product marketing, said the airline and Spotify had announced a partnership a little over a year earlier to explore preloading some music on seatback displays. United concluded that letting customers activate their own accounts and stream their own music was the logical next step. Muren described the result as personalization in which a customer's actual account and all of their material is available on the flight.
Grant Milstead, United's vice president for digital, said the integration would not have been possible without Starlink's network. He cited the service's low latency and what he described as its ability to deliver a living-room-in-the-sky experience. United chose Starlink for global connectivity, including coverage over the poles on some transatlantic and transpacific routes, and Milstead said the bandwidth, coverage, and reliability have been strong enough that passengers have streamed across seatback screens without interruptions.
United said additional third-party streaming apps are planned, with the Spotify deal serving as a blueprint for future integrations. Muren said he could imagine room at United for any platform customers are accustomed to using in their living room or during their workday. The airline's push comes as other carriers race to install satellite Wi-Fi on their planes; American, Qatar, Emirates, Lufthansa, Air France, and British Airways are among those going with Starlink, while Delta Air Lines is partnering with Amazon's LEO project and JetBlue is sticking with Fly-Fi powered by Viasat.
Milstead acknowledged that Starlink is a differentiator for United only for a moment in time, since fast Wi-Fi is coming for every airline. He pointed to the mobile app as a significant differentiator for United and said the seatback screen will become one in the future, when connectivity is the expectation.
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