Amazon (AMZN) announced on Tuesday that it will provide internet service to Delta Air Lines (DAL) flights via its Amazon Leo satellites beginning in 2028.
Like SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon’s Leo, which stands for Low Earth Orbit, service, relies on a constellation of satellites orbiting the planet to beam internet connectivity to stationary base stations on the ground or, in the case of Delta, to aircraft flying through the sky.
The retail and cloud computing giant says that at 370 miles above the Earth, its Leo satellites are 50 times closer to the planet than the geostationary satellite systems that power older, laggy in-flight Wi-Fi services.
When up and running, Amazon says that Delta’s planes will feature antennas that can support download speeds as fast as 1 gigabit per second and uploads of 400 megabits per second. That could make it possible to take video calls and stream movies from Netflix while flying.
Leo, however, is still playing catch up to Starlink. Amazon says the company currently has more than 200 satellites in orbit with plans for 20 additional satellite launches this year.
But Starlink has 10,000 satellites already in orbit and continues to expand that lead thanks to SpaceX’s rocket capabilities.
Starlink is also already available on competing airlines including Southwest (LUV) and United Airlines (UAL).