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by ryandrake 13 days ago
Also, not everyone in "aviation" is either an airliner or a 20 seat private jet. Joe Piston flying his two seater Cessna that cost him about as much as a new Toyota is not ever going to be paying Starlink's aviation price.

They really need more price tiers and scale them by a better price differentiator: max gross weight or number of seats.
2 comments
engineer_22 13 days ago
Joe Piston probably has enough on his plate flying his 2-seater without global 1Gbps entertainment-on-demand or executing trades on his brokerage account while his team of financiers crunch the numbers in row 2.

Starlink Aviation has 2 General Aviation tiers at $200/mo and $1,000/mo, 3 business tiers, $4000/mo, $12,500/mo, $20,000/mo, and negotiable “Fleet” pricing for commercial and government.

https://starlink.com/business/aviation?srsltid=AfmBOoqiIuBL1...

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ryandrake 13 days ago
Of course a pilot is not going to trading stocks while flying, but there are plenty of safety reasons to have in-cockpit connectivity, including weather, notams, long-range comms with their destination, and so on. Not to mention convenient Internet for a passenger on a long flight, who themselves might want to trade their stocks.

These use cases are approximately competing with SiriusXM weather, which has price tiers from $29.99/mo to $99.99/mo.

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throwitaway222 13 days ago
Some of these Cesnas have 4 seats. Wife in copilot seat on an ipad, and the kids in the back playing COD on their Steam Decks.
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verzali 13 days ago
Whats the point of taking passengers if they aren't going to be paying attention. Leave them on the ground and take someone who actually enjoys the experience.
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schmookeeg 13 days ago
As a Joe Piston, the starlink pricing constant-whipsaw has been really annoying.

I love the tech. It's truly game-changing. And there is no competitor right now.

I bought my mini dish for $400 or so. I've paid $250/mo, $65/mo, $250/mo again, now $200/mo, and on standby for $5/mo and now $10/mo. Don't get me started on the speed-limit and bandwidth-metering games they've played along the way.

I literally have no idea from month to month what the thing will cost. It's still awesome. But there are thousands of butthurt pilots who bought the dish at 65/mo (and many made 100W PD power upgrades, self included, for another few hundred) and got raised to 250/mo immediately.

It's not so much the cost anymore as the principle of a completely unhinged vendor. Bezos' version will have a bunch of ready buyers if he can stick to a price for longer than a Ketamine high.

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