How we verify United Starlink data

Where the data comes from

We cross-check 3 sources:

  • United.com · one aircraft a minute

    We check one aircraft a minute against the Wi-Fi United lists for its upcoming flight, so each aircraft is re-checked about every three days. Only this can mark an aircraft as verified.

  • Community fleet spreadsheet · hourly

    United fleet enthusiasts keep a per-aircraft equipment sheet. Its Starlink entries count as reports until our own check confirms or contradicts them.

  • Flightradar24 fleet and schedules · fleet daily, schedules continuously

    The fleet list gives us the total and each aircraft's type. Schedules tell us which aircraft flies which flight.

How an aircraft counts as having Starlink

An aircraft is verified or reported:

  • Verified. We saw Starlink listed on united.com for a flight that aircraft flew.
  • Reported. A community source says it has Starlink. It counts toward the total and waits for our own check.

A flight more than about 2 days out has no aircraft yet, so its answer is a probability from the aircraft it has used before. Predictions never change the fleet count.

Once an hour we reconcile the sources. Our own checks win: an aircraft we find with another Wi-Fi system comes out of the total, whatever the spreadsheet says.

How fresh it is

Checks and schedule updates run all day, and every page reads the live database, so a change shows up on the next page load. Last updated October 5, 2026.

What we can't tell you

  • The aircraft can change up to departure, so yours may not be the one we checked.
  • We track aircraft, not connection quality or outages on a given flight.
  • An install date is the day we first saw Starlink on the aircraft, which can be a few days after the work was done.

Get the data

/api/data is open JSON, no key needed. It lists the Starlink United aircraft we count (type, operator, date found, and the Wi-Fi the community sheet lists), the fleet totals behind the headline percentage, the last-updated time, and upcoming flights for each of those aircraft. Read lastUpdated with the counts.

The same aircraft with the date each was found, as a spreadsheet: /data/starlink-tails.csv.

Citing this data

Quote the count on the homepage (element id starlink-stat), which gives the United Airlines count, the fleet total and the percentage. The numbers change as installs are verified, so include the date from the page's "Data last updated" line. Credit to unitedstarlinktracker.com is appreciated. The source code is public.