Southwest scores 16 out of 100, which is long shot, and sits 17 of 18 on the board. Nobody publishes per-tail data for this fleet, so this is a number about the airline and nothing narrower. The signed deal below counts zero until hardware flies.
Reported · fleet state compiled from public Southwest announcements, Jul 2026 · quality weights from Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, 28 Apr 2026
First Starlink aircraft (N8543Z) entered service 2026-06-22; Southwest targets 300+ of 803 by year-end. Free for Rapid Rewards members. The rest of the fleet is paid Anuvu or Viasat.
37300+ by end-2026, installs runningFIRM
Reported Southwest: the 300-by-year-end target, restated when N8543Z entered service, 22 JUN 2026.
That is the next-gen number this fleet would carry if the deal lands as announced: 300 of 803 aircraft committed × 1.00 low-earth orbit × 1.00 free-for-you. A committed share of the fleet, not a measurement. 1 of them is flying it today. It is grey by rule, it sorts nothing, and it never appears without the date beside it. All four projections, and the rules →
Every aircraft Southwest flies, by system, priced. The rows add up to the published ConnectScore, and the top row on its own is the next-gen number. The build fails if they stop adding up.
| Segment | Aircraft | Share | Share of the fleet | Quality | Free | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starlink next-gen row One aircraft. Southwest targets 300+ of 803 by year-end. Reported Southwest; N8543Z entered service 2026-06-22 · 2026-06-22 | 1 | 0.1% | 1.00 | 1.00 | 0.1 | |
| Anuvu or Viasat Southwest has run Anuvu Ku for years and has been fitting Viasat on newer deliveries without publishing a split. Its 17 Mbps Ookla median and 9.2% consistency say most of the fleet is still the older kit, which is why the floor sits near the legacy end of a very wide range. Messaging is free, $8 per device for the rest, streaming blocked on the free tier. Reported Southwest inflight wifi page; Southwest FY2025 10-K for the fleet count · 2026-07 | 802 | 99.9% | 0.22 to 0.55 | 0.70 | 15.4 to 38.5 | |
| ConnectScore We publish the floor. The ceiling is 39, and the gap is the part of the fleet whose split nobody has published. | 803 | 100% | 16 to 39 | |||
| Next-gen odds, the top row on its own | 0.1% | 0 |
803 aircraft with a published system. Every system on the fleet is named and the counts are not published, so the score is a range. Points are shown to one decimal place; the unrounded rows sum to 15.51, which rounds to the published 16.
Unpublished splits: Anuvu or Viasat (802 aircraft). Southwest inflight wifi page; Southwest FY2025 10-K for the fleet count would settle it.
Four things, in the order they become useful. Every one of them is available at tier D, which is the tier this page was derived at. Anything this fleet cannot support has been cut from the list.
Aircraft assignments firm up roughly 48 hours before departure and they can still move up to pushback. Whatever this page says today, the answer for your flight is more settled then.
Southwest publishes an amenity marker against each flight in its own booking flow, and that marker is about the aircraft now assigned to it. It is the closest thing to a per-flight answer this fleet has. The airline is asserting it; nobody has verified the install.
Nobody has load-tested a full cabin on any of these systems, so a good score is not a promise about the hour you fly. Downloading the deck is the move that makes the odds stop mattering.
Southwest has Starlink on 1 of its 803 aircraft (0%) as of 2026-07, so it is still unlikely on a random flight. Its ConnectScore is 16 out of 100, in the long shot band.
On Southwest it is free for loyalty members. ConnectScore multiplies the fleet share by a free-for-you factor, so a paid or unconfirmed free claim scores lower than the same fleet given away free.
1 of 803, or 0% of the fleet. Compiled from public airline announcements, July 2026.
Everything on this page comes from what Southwest has published about its own fleet. Nobody has published what it was like in the seat. If you flew Southwest this month, thirty seconds here is a data point nobody else has.
Reported Fleet state compiled from public Southwest announcements, Jul 2026. Quality weights: Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, 28 Apr 2026. Full credit and citation →