Virgin Atlantic, Boeing Team for ESA Installs

Virgin Atlantic will lean on Boeing Global Services (BGS) for installation of new inflight connectivity hardware on the carrier’s 787 Dreamliner fleet. The carrier announced plans in July to deploy Starlink’s inflight internet solution on its fleet.

We’re witnessing rapid advances in satellite and antenna technology, and we’re proud to provide our OEM-backed engineering expertise and hardware that will enable Virgin Atlantic to bring faster, more reliable connectivity to their 787 Dreamliner fleet.

– Doug Backhus, vice president of Cabin, Modifications and Maintenance for Boeing Global Services

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The BGS solution takes advantage of a new antenna fairing designed for accommodate Electronically Steered Phased Array (ESA) antennas. Together with an ESA, the fairing, called the Boeing Aerodynamic Shroud (previously tipped as “Aeroshroud,” supports Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and multi-orbit connectivity.

Boeing’s Aeroshroud Takes Flight

Boeing will provide the adapter plate, the shroud, and specs to ESA manufacturers so they can develop the necessary additional bits to form-fit their ESA into the mounting. This joint effort between Boeing and the ESA suppliers also accounts for the ESA flying exposed rather than simply mounting to the lug points on the adapter plate under the radome.

Notably, the adapter plate used is the same as the one used for the tri-band radome and gimbal-mount solutions. For customers with an existing solution on a Boeing-provided mount (including Virgin Atlantic’s Panasonic Avionics kit currently on the 787s) this allows for a streamlined process to remove the old terminal and install a new one. It can take advantage of existing adapter plate and holes in the fuselage.

While Virgin Atlantic is the first to publicly announce plans for 787 retrofits with the Starlink program, it is not alone in moving that direction. United Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air France, and WestJet all committed to Starlink deployments on the type, so progress with the Aeroshroud effort will be welcome news to those airlines.

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Two More Years

Installations for Virgin Atlantic’s Starlink kit are expected to begin in Q2 2026 and complete fleet-wide by the end of 2027. This will see the existing Panasonic Avionics (787s), and Viasat (A350-1000s) deinstalled. The company will also ultimately retire its Intelsat 2Ku aircraft as the A330-300s depart the fleet.

The service will be complimentary for Flying Club members on board.

Details on Boeing’s efforts with the Aeroshroud program were first shared with PaxEx Premium subscribers in April 2025.