Starlink, Gogo Galileo, and Viasat JetXP: what actually differs

Here is the comparison an engineer would run.

First, the physics that decides everything else

Altitude sets latency, and latency is the thing that separates a system where a video call works from one where it does not.

Starlink operates at roughly 550 kilometers. Eutelsat OneWeb, the constellation behind Gogo Galileo, sits at roughly 1,200 kilometers. Geostationary satellites, which carry Viasat's Ka-band service, sit at 35,786 kilometers. A geostationary round trip covers something like 143,000 kilometers of signal path before any processing happens at either end. That is where the several-hundred-millisecond delay on legacy in-flight internet comes from, and it is why those systems handled email competently and video calls badly.

The cost of a low orbit is footprint. A satellite at 550 kilometers sees a small patch of earth, so you need thousands of them and the terminal has to hand off continuously throughout the flight.

Handoff quality, not peak throughput, is where LEO systems actually differentiate from one another. A link that benchmarks at 300 Mbps and drops your session at every satellite transition is worse than a steady 60.

And the band tradeoff behind it

Higher frequency carries more bits per hertz and allows a smaller antenna for the same gain. Higher frequency also attenuates harder through water. That single tradeoff explains the entire band landscape.

One correction worth making, because it drives bad decisions: rain fade matters far less at cruise than ground intuition suggests, because you are usually above the weather. The exposure is at low elevation angles, meaning taxi, departure, arrival, and high-latitude operations where the look angle to a geostationary satellite is shallow. A Ka system that degrades on a wet taxi at Teterboro and performs flawlessly at FL410 is behaving exactly as designed. Operators routinely misread that as a fault.

Second, the antenna, and a distinction that gets misread as marketing

All three systems now use electronically steered arrays rather than mechanically gimballed dishes. No moving parts, lower profile, faster beam agility, which is what makes continuous LEO handoff practical at all.

But within ESAs there is a real physical distinction that shows up on quotes and is frequently mistaken for a service tier:

• Half duplex (HDX) shares a single aperture between transmit and receive, alternating in time. Smaller, lighter, less power, lower cost, and a correspondingly lower throughput ceiling.
• Full duplex (FDX) uses separate transmit and receive apertures running simultaneously. Larger, heavier, more power draw, materially higher throughput.

When a quote says HDX or FDX it is describing an antenna with real weight, power, and drag consequences, not a subscription level. On a light or midsize aircraft with a tight size, weight, and power budget, the compact HDX class terminal may be the only thing that closes, regardless of what you would prefer to buy.

Mounting matters too. Fuselage crown mounts tend to be flatter with broader airframe applicability and a structural review of the crown skin. Tail mounts under a radome are common on larger cabins, often lower drag, and generally more involved both to install and to access later for maintenance.

Third, and least discussed: who owns what

This is the part that predicts pricing behavior better than any spec sheet, and almost nobody puts it in a comparison.

Two of the three do not own their satellites. One of the three does not own its distribution. That asymmetry is the whole competitive dynamic, and it has a direct consequence for you as a buyer.

SpaceX owns the constellation, the terminal, the network, and the customer relationship. Dealers install but do not set service pricing. When SpaceX reprices, there is no distributor in the chain to absorb, negotiate, or delay it. We wrote about that repricing and what to do about it here. Gogo, by contrast, owns almost no space assets but owns the dealer and service relationship, which is exactly the asset Starlink is bypassing. Viasat owns Ka-band capacity outright but does not sell direct at all, reaching customers through Collins, Honeywell, Satcom Direct, and Gogo.

None of this makes one of them right. It tells you whether there is a counterparty to talk to the next time pricing moves.

The three systems, side by side

Starlink Aviation

LEO at roughly 550 km, Ku-band user links, Aero Terminal ESA with a high performance variant for the top tier. Advertised 135 to 310 Mbps down and 20 to 44 Mbps up, latency commonly under 99 ms, and up to 1 Gbps on the high performance antenna. SpaceX has stated the terminal adds less than a 0.5 percent increase in fuel consumption, which is the number that comes up in nearly every owner conversation.

STC coverage as of May 15, 2026 spanned Airbus, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier, Dassault, De Havilland, Embraer, Gulfstream, Mitsubishi, and Textron airframes, with more in development. Coverage inside a manufacturer is not uniform, some approvals carry serial number limitations, and the applicability language in the STC governs rather than the marketing list.

Fleet validation is real: NetJets has an agreement covering 600 business jets by the end of 2026, and Flexjet with Nextant developed the first G650 STC.

Wins on: raw throughput and, historically, cost per bit. Watch: no pricing counterparty, and the new regional tiers lock you to one continental region.

Gogo Galileo

LEO on the Eutelsat OneWeb constellation, 648 Ku-band satellites at roughly 1,200 km, with terminals manufactured by Hughes Network Systems. Two variants: the compact half-duplex HDX at reliable speeds up to 60 Mbps, suitable from light through large cabin and mountable on fuselage or tail, and the larger full-duplex FDX at consistent speeds up to 195 Mbps for super-midsize and larger.

As of March 23, 2026, more than 600 HDX and FDX terminals had shipped with more than 120 aircraft in service, and Gogo expected nearly 900 terminals shipped to partners by the end of 2026. StandardAero completed HDX and FDX STCs on the Challenger 600 series through its ODA, with further airframe approvals in progress.

Gogo also brings the AVANCE cabin platform, an air-to-ground network across North America, and, following the Satcom Direct acquisition completed in December 2024, a very large installed base. Third-party analysis put the combined Gogo and Satcom Direct installed base near 18,000 IFC terminals.

Wins on: mission-matched network selection, because multi-orbit and multi-band means an operator flying domestic routes is not paying for global LEO, plus a distributor you can actually negotiate with. Also the practical choice where size, weight, and power will not close on a larger antenna. Watch: the 60 Mbps HDX ceiling is well below Starlink on paper, and Gogo's counterargument is consistency under load rather than peak speed.

Viasat JetXP

Ka-band geostationary via Global Xpress, with HEO payloads added for high-latitude coverage, following the Inmarsat acquisition completed in May 2023. JetXP unified the legacy Jet ConneX and Viasat Ka services under one brand with uncapped speeds and network prioritization, and had more than 2,100 customers as of November 2025. Viasat has claimed service activated on more than 5,000 business jets.

Viasat announced in November 2025 that Telesat Lightspeed LEO capacity will be integrated into JetXP, combining GEO throughput with LEO latency. Until that lands, latency is the weak point in the story, and latency is the metric buyers now lead with.

Note the live deadline: Viasat's Ku-band business aviation service ends in September 2026, with incentives of up to $140,000 per aircraft to move Ku customers onto JetXP.

Wins on: the largest installed base, mature distribution and support, and regulatory reach into markets where LEO approval is incomplete, including India and China. Watch: GEO latency until Telesat integrates, and the fact that you are buying through a partner rather than from Viasat.

Where each one genuinely wins

The metrics that belong in your comparison

If you take one thing from this article, take this list. Peak throughput is on it exactly once, at the bottom.

• Consistent throughput under load. What the system delivers with a full cabin, not a single-user speed test. Most often omitted, most relevant.
• Latency and jitter. Jitter is the reason calls drop on links with good average latency.
• Availability by region and route, expressed as a percentage of flight time on the routes you actually fly.
• Handoff behavior. Do sessions survive satellite and beam transitions.
• Skew and elevation angle limits. Where in the world the geometry degrades.
• Weight, power draw, and drag. Real operating cost and a performance planning input.
• Concurrent user capacity. Eight passengers is a different question from one.
• Peak throughput. The advertised number. Least useful figure in the document.

A closing caution on comparing quotes

Several of the most recognizable names in this sector are manufacturers or distributors rather than network operators. Honeywell builds terminals and distributes Viasat. Collins distributes. Hughes manufactures the terminals behind Gogo Galileo. A quote from Honeywell and a quote from Viasat are not the same kind of object, and treating them as directly comparable produces incoherent conclusions.

Work out which layer each quote is coming from before you line them up, and make sure every quote covers the same antenna architecture, the same approval path, and the same scope of installation work. We wrote a full breakdown of what an installation quote should contain here.

If you would rather have that done for you, send us the aircraft and we will confirm the approved route, write one scope, and bring back competing quotes on price, downtime, and slot date.

Sources and further reading: Gogo investor and product communications on Galileo HDX and FDX deployment status, March 2026. StandardAero and Gulfstream STC announcements, first half 2026. Viasat product communications on JetXP and the Ku-band transition incentive. Starlink published aviation specifications and STC availability, May 15, 2026. Band, orbit, and antenna characteristics are settled engineering and ITU convention. All market figures as of June 3, 2026.

Virtual Hangar is not a repair station, is not affiliated with any connectivity provider, and does not perform installations. We scope the work, run the competition, and coordinate the event.