diff --git a/airflow/contrib/operators/spark_submit_operator.py b/airflow/contrib/operators/spark_submit_operator.py
index 21f6b4ec3df066..caee3359762243 100644
--- a/airflow/contrib/operators/spark_submit_operator.py
+++ b/airflow/contrib/operators/spark_submit_operator.py
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ def __init__(self,
                  application_args=None,
                  env_vars=None,
                  verbose=False,
-                 spark_binary="spark-submit",
+                 spark_binary=None,
                  *args,
                  **kwargs):
         super(SparkSubmitOperator, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)