Getting (and staying) online while flying has gotten way better over the years, but at the end of the day, you’re still trying to connect to the planet while you’re 30,000 feet above it. In other words, it’s still going to be a bit of a hassle—but there are things you can do to make it easier. Here are some of the best in-flight wi-fi tricks and hacks.
Download Media Before You Board
Even if you get in-flight wi-fi, it’s going to be slower than what you would have at home or at the airport. You’re not going to be able to stream 4K, high bit-rate video from Netflix—and even if you managed it, you’d probably end up ruining the connection for everyone else.
For movies, shows, or playlists you know you’ll want on your flight, it’s best to download them ahead of time. Most streaming services have a method to download episodes of shows for local viewing while you’re offline. You can also load video or music files on your phone directly, if you have local copies on your computer or other device.
Store Important Documents and Apps Locally
Many applications will work while offline or with limited internet access, even if they’re normally online web apps. For example, Google Docs can work offline if you head to Google Drive and go to Settings > General > Offline and enable the checkbox to work offline. From there, make sure the specific documents you want to edit are downloaded locally.
This process will be different for other applications, so check the specifics of the apps you use on a regular basis. Many productivity tools have some version of airplane mode access, so even if you lose connection to the internet, you can still keep working.
Schedule Posts or Emails to Send During Your Flight
For some jobs, you need to constantly stay online—or at least seem that way. While your mileage will vary depending on your industry, you can fudge it a bit by scheduling your emails or social media posts to go up while you’re in the air. After all, waiting an hour to respond to an email from your boss can be more acceptable than waiting four.
Most email apps have a tool to schedule your replies, but so do communication apps like Slack. If you spend a lot of time posting to social media, tools like Buffer can help you space out your posts so you don’t end up leaving gaps.
Use Your Rewards Account to Get Free Wi-Fi
Airlines might be pinching every penny to get by, but on some airlines, you can still get free wi-fi—as long as you sign up for their rewards programs. Airlines like Delta and JetBlue offer free in-flight wi-fi on a number of flights if you log in with your SkyMiles or TrueBlue accounts.
Other airlines like Southwest offer complimentary wi-fi due to sponsorships from cell carriers like T-Mobile, even if you don’t use T-Mobile for your phone service. You’ll likely need to sign in with your airline rewards account to make use of the perk.
Get Reimbursed for Wi-Fi Through Your Credit Card
Even if an airline doesn’t offer complimentary wi-fi, you can sometimes still get it for free through your credit card company. Many credit card providers will either offer discounts on certain airlines’ internet access, or reimbursements after the fact.
You’ll typically see these listed as travel credits or “airline incidentals” credits, but some credit cards offer an annual allotment of fees you can get reimbursed for. In some cases, credit card companies will only reimburse you for fees from certain airlines, but in others it will apply to general travel fees. It’s worth checking your credit card’s perks before booking your travel to see which airlines you might get credit for.
Use Free Messaging Workarounds to Access the Internet
Some airlines will offer free internet access, but only for messaging or other extremely limited services. That might be sufficient for your needs, but occasionally you can also leverage that for broader access than the airline intended.
For example, some users have reported that you can access the Gemini service via the Messages app on Android to do broad searches that all get funneled through a single chat interface, without paying an extra fee. Others have claimed you can use a VPN while connected to a messaging-only network connection to open up full internet access. This will vary based on airline and the types of connections they offer, but it’s worth giving it a shot if you don’t want to shell out for full internet access.
Moderate Your Streaming Speed
If you do get in-flight access to wi-fi, it’s still probably going to be pretty speed-limited. You can make watching things easier on yourself by manually dropping your streaming speed where you can.
Sites like YouTube offer tools to limit how much bandwidth you use. On any given YouTube video, click the gear icon and choose Quality to select a lower resolution. Depending on the quality, you might not even notice much of a difference, but you’ll get better playback and fewer interruptions on other browsing while you do it. Check the other sites you use for similar features.
Limit Bandwidth in Your Browser Directly
If you’re struggling to get solid performance with site-specific tools, you can use speed throttling at the browser level to moderate your bandwidth and smooth out everything else.
In Chrome, open dev tools (F12 on Windows, Option+Cmd+I on Mac), then select Network. On this tab, click “No throttling” and choose a more limited option. This is usually designed to mimic slower internet connections for development purposes, but throttling your own connection here can force more bandwidth-hungry services like Netflix to reduce their usage, freeing up the plane’s limited bandwidth for everything else you’re doing.
You can also save some bandwidth by using Reading mode to pull only the parts of an article you actually need. In Chrome, enable this quickly by pressing Alt+Shift+R.
Additionally, ad blocker extensions can cut down on loading unnecessary data. If you use Chrome, managing ad blockers may take some extra steps, so you may prefer using a different browser with fewer restrictions.
Protect Your Data When Using In-Flight Wi-Fi
In-flight wi-fi is still public wi-fi, so you should treat it like you’re connecting to any given Starbucks network. Any website that isn’t already using HTTPS should raise a flag, but even then, that’s not necessarily enough. For any particularly sensitive work, you should enable a VPN to protect your data.
Beyond that, make sure you have updated antivirus software running, and use tools like uBlock Origin to block data tracking. There isn’t much about connecting to in-flight wi-fi that differs from any other public network from a security perspective, but taking basic precautions goes a long way toward keeping your information safe whenever you’re on a shared connection.
