The simple pre-flight habit that can save your workday

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More flights than ever are equipped with Wi-Fi, enabling you to stay connected even while hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour. Increasingly, airlines are removing Wi-Fi fees altogether — JetBlue offers free Wi-Fi to everyone on all its flights, and United is rolling out free Starlink Wi-Fi across its fleet.

But that convenience can make us complacent. Like many frequent flyers, I've started assuming every plane will have working Wi-Fi — until the day it doesn't.

Recently, I booked a midday cross-country flight, ready to turn my seat into a flying office. Then came the dreaded announcement:

“We apologize in advance, but the Wi-Fi on today’s flight is inoperable. Send those last texts and emails while we’re still at the gate.”

At that moment, I pulled out my laptop and quickly downloaded all the emails and tasks that I could, ensuring that I could at least make some progress — even offline — during the flight.

Since then, I've made it a habit to offline any cloud-based files before leaving home, so that even if I’m offline in the air, I can still make some progress.

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The same strategy applies to power. Most non-regional aircraft these days have USB and power ports, even in the economy cabin. If your plane has over 100 seats on it, you’re more likely than not to find a power port. However, just because a port is there doesn’t mean it will be operational.

I’ve been put in a bind several times by boarding a plane with low charge on my phone and laptop, assuming that I’d use the flight to recharge — only to find that the power at my seat wasn’t working.

Now, I set a day-prior reminder to charge my phone, laptop, and headphones to 100% before the flight. It's also a good idea to travel with a ​portable power bank​ so you have a backup plan if you run out of juice mid-flight.

These two small actions can make a big difference in your productivity and stress levels if you’re planning to work while flying.

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