The Ugly Truth Behind JetBlue's "Half-Baked" Deal with Amazon's Project Kuiper (Shares Tank)

Bold strategy Cotton… 

Everyone on God's green Earth already knows airplane Wi-Fi is a scam wrapped in a prayer, but JetBlue decided to double down and let Andy Jassy test-drive his half-baked satellite constellation on paying passengers.

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, right now Kuiper’s network is a nothing but a rounding error: barely 100 satellites in orbit, while Musk’s Starlink has more than 3,200 and six million users. Amazon swears it’ll add 27 more birds this month and eventually build to 3,200+, but for now? Imagine splitting a Taco Bell party pack between the entire New York Giants roster and calling it “coverage.”

(Source: Bloomberg) 

The deal makes JetBlue the first airline to roll with Kuiper. Whereas, the plan starts with about 70 planes… a quarter on the fleet… and finishes in 2028. JetBlue president Marty St. George is already hedging, saying it’s “too early to tell” if the rest of the fleet will get Kuiper. Translation: if the Wi-Fi craps out mid-Zoom, they’ll pretend this never happened and crawl back to Viasat, their old standby.

For Amazon, it’s not just about keeping bored fliers scrolling Instagram. Project Kuiper is a $10B moonshot meant to challenge Starlink, hook consumers, and land government contracts. Bezos has rockets lined up through Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, but Kuiper has been tripping over delays since day one. The JetBlue announcement is a chance to boast that it isn’t just vaporware… even if the service won’t actually hit passengers’ tray tables until late this decade.

(Source: Giphy) 

With that said, after watching its American Airlines partnership get nuked in court and its Spirit acquisition implode under antitrust pressure, the Jet Blue is hunting for premium perks to stop bleeding market share. Lounges, first-class cabins, and now “better” Wi-Fi are all part of the survival playbook.

But, but, but… in reality here, Kuiper doesn’t have the capacity yet, and by 2027, Starlink will probably be beaming TikToks to Antarctica while Amazon’s still chasing regulatory approvals. JetBlue gets to say it’s first, Amazon gets to tell investors it landed an airline, and passengers? They still get to pay $300 for a middle seat and pray their Wi-Fi doesn’t cut out halfway through sending a Slack emoji.

(Source: Giphy) 

Of course, Wall Street noticed as Amazon popped +4% while JetBlue tanked -6%. Which makes sense considering one’s selling the dream while the other is selling middle seats and bandwidth promises three years out. Sounds legit. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon as mentioned in the article.