Inflight WiFi not working? Check your DNS settings
The other week, while flying back home from Laracon US in NYC, I found myself needing to pull a few files that I had forgotten to before take off. No problem, I thought, as the Delta plane offered WiFi from Gogo.
I connected to the plane’s WiFi network and… nothing. No welcome splash, no acceptance of terms, nothing. Hmm… this is a bit odd. I tried to disconnet and reconnect a few times (sometimes slow networks can trigger weird behavior), before finally testing the connection on my phone (which worked flawlessly).
I fired up Terminal on my Mac and pinged the address for the splash page which had come up on my phone… again, nothing. Flushed the DNS and… nothing. Wait a second…
It then dawned on me: DNS. My MacBook Pro’s DNS servers were set to Google’s 8.8.8.8
and 8.8.4.4
. Duh! Removed them and we were back in business.
As an added bonus: Delta lets you stream the same movies that are on their In-Flight Entertainment System, and while the IFE system doesn’t connect to my wireless Airpods 🎧… my MacBook Pro surely does 😎