Historically, Southwest Airlines, along with many other carriers, blocked high-bandwidth streaming services like Netflix to prevent a few passengers from hogging the limited internet capacity of the aircraft's satellite system. Traditional geostationary satellites had high latency and low total bandwidth, meaning if ten people tried to watch HD movies simultaneously, the entire plane's Wi-Fi would slow to a crawl or crash. However, in 2026, Southwest is in the middle of a massive digital overhaul, deploying SpaceX's Starlink Wi-Fi on 300 of its aircraft. This new low-Earth-orbit (LEO) technology offers significantly higher bandwidth and lower latency, finally allowing for seamless streaming. On planes that have not yet been upgraded to Starlink, the block on Netflix may still exist to preserve a "fair" connection for all users to check emails or browse the web. On the newly outfitted 737 MAX 8 and 737-700 jets, passengers can expect to stream Netflix and YouTube without the "buffering wheel" for the first time, as the airline shifts toward a model where seamless internet access is the standard.