On 23 September 2026, Vietjet announced an agreement with Starlink, with plans to equip an initial 120 aircraft and offer passengers free high-speed inflight Wi-Fi. On the same day, Amazon Kuiper Việt Nam received a private telecommunications network licence to test satellite customer terminals manufactured in Vietnam. The announcements place Vietnam in two business activities: procuring connectivity for an airline and making and checking the equipment that provides a connection.
Free Wi-Fi has to earn its return through the airline business
Vietjet plans to include connectivity in its passenger service. Travellers would not need to buy a separate internet package to reply to a client, deal with work or contact someone meeting them at the airport. The initial installation plan for 120 aircraft brings the service into the context of a fleet rollout. Vietjet announcement
From a business-model perspective, the return on free Wi-Fi must come through the wider airline business. When fares and departure times are similar, could connectivity give travellers a reason to choose Vietjet or fly with it again? For people who travel across borders for work and need to stay in contact, that is closer to a ticket-buying decision than a headline about network speed.
The airline also faces ongoing costs. Equipment installation is followed by maintenance and connectivity services. If passengers use free Wi-Fi without changing their booking choices, it mainly represents a service cost. If it helps attract or retain them, it can generate a competitive return. The useful commercial question is how connectivity contributes to selling flights.
Amazon’s licence concerns quality in terminal production
The Ministry of Science and Technology’s report on 24 September states that the private network uses satellite links to test terminal operation and assess products made in Vietnam. Vietnam’s role in this announcement is specific: a place where terminals are manufactured and tested. Ministry report
This focuses the industrial story on a physical product. A customer terminal turns a satellite signal into a usable connection, and operational checks before shipment affect delivery quality. Having manufacturing and connection testing in the same geography creates conditions for finding faults, repairing products and testing them again. For a manufacturing business, those activities affect rework costs and delivery efficiency.
A useful investigation of Vietnam’s role in this supply chain can therefore start with terminal production: which processes take place locally, who provides testing, and whether local teams perform assembly, inspection or more extensive engineering work. Those divisions of work determine how deeply local businesses and workers participate.
Buying connectivity and delivering equipment
Vietjet’s announcement shows satellite connectivity being incorporated into airline services. Amazon’s puts Vietnam-made terminals in a production and quality-testing context. The economic logic of the first is to improve the flight product through connectivity; the second is to deliver equipment to the required quality. Vietnam appears on both the application and manufacturing sides of satellite connectivity, giving the two announcements a more specific business meaning than a broad story about a satellite internet boom.