Originally Posted by
Trip7
Looks like Delta is going the multi vendor route. A big clue was when it was announced some of the 350s will be getting Hughes net. I think it's a smart approach by the company. Viasat-3 should be excellent but that is highly dependent on 2 perfectly executed Antenna deployments on Viasats next 2 Satellites. Don't fault the company for not putting all its eggs in on basket.
Internet isn’t mission critical like parts on a jet. Little risk in going with one vendor. Regardless of the vendor, they will all work and even if they didn’t it isn’t the end of the world if one goes down (each plane is only able to work with one provider anyway so it doesn’t allow you to just switch all your planes at once to a different provider). If you don’t want all your eggs in one basket then go with 1 satellite provider and one ground based provider or some other tech. For leverage purposes maybe it is a good idea? Or for testing? What risk does United have in going all Starlink?