The Android Travel Trick That Can Get Wi-Fi To All Of Your Other Devices While Flying

As a frequent traveler, I’m always looking for ways to make my businesses more convenient and productive. I recently learned a trick that allows me to connect to Wi-Fi on an airplane (or even a cruise ship) and share it with several different devices. There are often two limitations when connecting to Wi-Fi in a passenger car. Firstly, you have to pay for it, and secondly, when you do it, it will be limited to only one device.

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I am a user of both iPhone 16 and various Android devices (often OnePlus Open), and before I learned this trick, I usually connected to my iPhone. The iPhone is what I use for most gaming and movie watching while strapped to a seat in a metal tube at 35,000 feet. Well, it turns out I’ve been fooling myself all along.

If you are connecting to Wi-Fi using an Android phone, you can enable Wi-Fi hotspot function on the phone and that’s how you broadcast your own Wi-Fi signal using the airplane’s Wi-Fi. It’s like using an android phone as a wifi repeaterbut instead of filling a dead zone in your home, you connect multiple devices to a single connection.

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The trick here is that this only works on Android phones, and the reason is actually quite simple. You can use your iPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspotand in fact, this is often easier to do on an iPhone if you share files with other Apple devices, and in many cases it happens automatically. But to do this, your iPhone turns off Wi-Fi to broadcast to other devices. Your Android phone has no such limitation.

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There are some restrictions to this. Of course, airplane Wi-Fi can be unstable (or simply not work), in which case obviously all you’re doing is transmitting a bad signal. The other issue is that, at least with the airline I prefer (United), the terms of service don’t allow you to share the Wi-Fi signal with other people, but they don’t prevent you from directly sharing it with other devices. Other airlines, such as American Airlines, strictly prohibit tethering. Delta also prohibits practicing with another person, but not between multiple devices. Needless to say, it’s worth reading the terms of service before doing so, and of course, you will do so at your own risk.

By doing this, you can extend your Internet connection to other phones, tablets, laptop, and more. Also, if you’re a T-Mobile subscriber like me, chances are your plan includes at least some connecting to Wi-Fi on an airplane for free.

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