How to use VPN on a flight to secure my laptop/iPhone/iPad?

WatermelonMan

On a recent flight and the airline's complimentary WIFI was available, but naturally it's not really secure. Saw a guy ahead of me using the WIFI on his laptop and then connected to endpoint security which I assume was VPN to keep his laptop secure.

I tried unsuccessfully to connect to BitDefender VPN on my iPhone, so how do you use VPN on a plane using the airline's WIFI? Running Windows 11 on PC.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @WatermelonMan and welcome to the Community!

Airplane Wi-Fi is convenient, but it comes with certain risks — it’s like connecting to a public Wi-Fi network in the air. If the airline's Wi-Fi gives you access to the internet, then connecting a VPN should normally work and if it doesn't, the Support teams can investigate this further. But if that network gives you access to a limited pool of offline resources, the VPN may not work.

Should you wish to have someone take a closer look into this, you can contact the Bitdefender Support teams using the link below:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

Choose from the available contact channels, chat, phone and email/ticket. Chat would be the fastest way to reach them.

I haven't really experienced airline Wi-Fi so I cannot advise here, but I've consulted our VPN engineers and the general consensus is that it should work having a VPN on board.

Regards,

Alex