Starlink Becomes Basic Welfare for Shipping Crew in International Shipping News 21/01/2026 The shipping industry is increasingly adopting the low-orbit satellite communication service ‘Starlink (Starlink)’ to address digital disconnection among crew members. This is because for crew members who spend several months at sea during a single voyage, ‘internet connectivity’ has become as fundamental a condition as salary. On the 19th, Hyundai Glovis announced that it has begun introducing Starlink for its owned vessels. Starlink is a satellite communication service provided by SpaceX, the space exploration company led by Elon Musk, which enables stable internet access anywhere in the world by utilizing thousands of small low-orbit satellites. Hyundai Glovis will install Starlink on 45 of its own vessels, including car carriers and bulk carriers. It will sequentially deploy the equipment starting with vessels arriving in South Korea this year. Starlink’s services and equipment are categorized based on usage environments, such as residential, maritime, and aviation. The maritime version of Starlink is designed to withstand extreme conditions like saltwater and strong winds, with installation costs alone reaching several million Korean won. Additional fees ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of Korean won are charged depending on the data plan. Within the shipping industry, Starlink is already recognized as a ‘basic welfare measure for crew members.’ This is because the burden of being cut off from family and friends during long voyages is significant, and younger crew members, who are accustomed to consuming video content like YouTube or OTT services and engaging in real-time social media communication, find it particularly difficult to endure such environments, leading to frequent departures. With the introduction of Starlink, the time required to download a 1.4GB movie during open-sea navigation is reduced from approximately 15 minutes to about 2 minutes. While communication was previously limited to text-based services like KakaoTalk messages, crew members can now more comfortably use video calls and watch YouTube Live streams. Korea Line Corporation also recently announced that it has completed the introduction of Starlink across all 38 of its owned vessels. SK Shipping finalized the adoption late last year, and Pan Ocean plans to install Starlink on its 113 existing vessels and newbuilds currently under construction. These moves reflect union demands to resolve digital disconnection caused by long-term offshore work. Source: The Chosun daily 2026-01-21 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share