Long flights are one of the last places you are still cut off from the internet, and Vietjet wants to change that on the routes it flies out of Malaysia. The airline has signed a strategic partnership with Starlink, the satellite internet service run by SpaceX, to offer passengers free high-speed Wi-Fi in the air.
For Malaysian travellers, the tie-up is aimed squarely at the trip to Vietnam. Vietjet says the service will let passengers stay connected for the whole journey on its direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi and to Ho Chi Minh City, the two routes most Malaysians take to the country.
Why Starlink for a plane
Traditional in-flight Wi-Fi has leaned on a small number of satellites parked far above the earth, which is part of why it has so often been slow, patchy and expensive. Starlink takes a different approach, using thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit much closer to the ground, which cuts the lag and raises the speeds enough to make streaming and video calls realistic rather than aspirational. It is the same network that has been rolling out on the ground in Malaysia, now pointed at the cabin.
What Vietjet has and has not said
Vietjet frames the agreement as part of a wider push to use technology to improve the passenger experience across its growing international network, rather than a one-off on the Malaysia routes. The airline has not yet put a date on when the free Wi-Fi switches on, nor detailed which aircraft get it first or the speeds passengers can expect, so those are the things to watch for as the rollout firms up.
Still, the direction is clear enough. Free, genuinely usable in-flight internet has been a paid extra or a source of frustration for years, and a budget carrier offering it at no charge on its Kuala Lumpur to Vietnam flights is the kind of perk that is easy to feel the value of. If you would rather stay reachable another way once you land, our guide to the best satellite phones in Malaysia covers the options that work beyond mobile coverage.
