Working on the plane is a flex. But doing it from a Southwest Airlines middle seat, not even the infinite legroom exit row, doesn’t say you’re important. You may be busy, but unless you’re using the photo as part of your work why are you taking this photo? I thought you were working!
The airplane, like the coffee shop, is one of those locations where white collar workers like to pull out their company laptop and stare at a screen for a few hours to signal to everyone around them that they are doing important work while actually accomplishing nothing https://t.co/rAKkuxoQY8
— Tony (@tonyzentelis) March 12, 2024
Last year I wrote about a Delta Air Lines passenger working while standing in his coach seat, turning the seat into a standing desk. That’s a great hack, it’s great for the back, though it can annoy your neighbors and may not turn out well in turbulence. It’s the move of a dedicated, upwardly mobile junior executive or consultant.
Indian tech billionaire Bhavin Turakhia choose American Airlines first class because of its “swivel seat” on the Boeing 777-300ER for long haul. That lets him set up his “rig” for working inflight with “laptop stand…keyboard, mouse, screen, power bank.” American Airlines endorsed the setup.
The man behind payment processing and buy now, pay later service Zeta wants to boost his productivity inflight, not travel light.
He brings a second computer screen, attaching to his laptop magnetically and connected via USB. Turakhia says it takes him just 30 seconds to get his inflight office set up and he claims a benefit of a 40% producitivty boost on a long haul flight. With this aircraft and seat he doesn’t even need to dismantle the electronic office for meals.
Latest airplane travel rig … laptop stand, (no levitation involved), keyboard, mouse, screen, power bank. And the @AmericanAir swivel seat 🙂 pic.twitter.com/IXKY4MsVPe
— Bhavin Turakhia (@bhavintu) November 29, 2023
On the other hand this is inflight productivity move of a true boss: bring all of your emails printed out onto the plane for some uninterrupted work time.
Older guy in front of me on a JSX flight is reading a stack of printed out emails.
He has the vibe of one of those old coots @iononrecourse talks about.
Zero F’s given.
— Kevin Dahlstrom (@Camp4) March 3, 2023
The most successful person I’ve ever met has his emails printed out by his assistant. If he’s asked to approve something, he initials his approval on the paper and the assistant scans it and emails it back. He doesn’t waste time on an inbox, or care about things like ‘inbox zero’.
Many years ago I would keep a paper file of ‘long reads’ I’d printed out and bring it with me on flights. Then a little over 20 years ago I started emailing things to myself that I could fully download and read on my blackberry inflight. That way I was less encumbered. The introduction of inflight internet 15 years ago changed my life.
Paper is no longer my style, but I’ve also never been able to leverage myself effectively with an assistant. Years ago when I first shared an assistant at work, they somehow stopped being my assistant. I never used their help, I wouldn’t even relinquish booking of my travel.
Inflight internet was truly a game changer for me. Flying during the week, during the day, I found working inflight to actually be relaxing on a portfolio basis, across my day. That’s because, pre-internet, I’d get off a cross-country flight with a deluge of unanswered urgent emails. That was stressful! It didn’t matter how ‘relaxing’ a flight was, that self-indulgence was quickly wiped out by the need to catch up.
On a plane my laptop is almost always open. I’m writing, keeping up with emails, head buried in Excel. I sort of feel guilty watching shows, and only do it when I’m too tired to work effectively or in the middle of the night on long haul flights.
I don’t do it for show. I do it because I always have a lot to do, and I’d rather get it done during quiet alone time than need to get work done when I’m with my daughter.
And so I care about two things more than anything else when I travel: the space to open my laptop, and a strong internet connection in the sky. I need at least extra legroom, so that nobody is reclining into my screen. And I cannot fly United domestically – too many of their planes still have unusable wifi.
I am sure to have a laptop with enough juice to last through the majority of my flights, but I still need seat power too. That means Southwest is out for anything more than three hours. Even their newest interiors only feature USB power.
Skip the cocktails, and I’m almost happy that the first class meals are usually bad – the trays take up space where my laptop goes and it always takes too long for them to be cleared when I’m done.
If it’s the start of a day, I crank out the day’s work before I land. And if it’s the end of the day, I’m more than caught up on everything I need to do that piled up during meetings. There’s nothing better for work than starting and ending the day in the air.
Gary,
There are laptops and certainly Chromebooks that can use in-seat power. Plus almost anything can run off of a USB cable.
Many thanks for this. I got a Chromebook in part so I could type up review notes in-flight.
Cheers;
Joe
I wrote parts of a couple of my books flying between CA and Chicago some years ago. Now i just sleep.
Ok but let’s discuss why airplane wifi seems to be more reliable than Amtrak/train wifi…
i love how gary writes a whole post on the joy of using space on a plane…..
from the starboard side of a JSX flight
dude.
seriously.
you are on a roll today with the “get in writing crap”.
and now this.
also, on the linked article from september of last year about the guy standing up and using the back of his seat as a desk……
how does that jive with the “right to recline” of the person sitting in the row ahead of where he is standing?
how about some referential integrity in your worldview?
I once flew in F on the Qatar A380 and sat next to Akbar Al Baker. I noticed that he didn’t have a smartphone, and that an assistant brought him a stack of printed out e-mails on which he wrote notes and returned them. Apparently you can run a major, global airline without in-flight wifi so that has to be worth something.
The only people I’ve found to be pretending to work on planes are non-MBB consultants in the 21-29 age group. They’re insecure because they couldn’t get a job at MBB, so they overcompensate by typing furiously on a laptop during taxi, takeoff, and landing, in direct violation of airline policy.
No serious work gets done in Excel. Anything other than back of the envelope number crunching is done in a proper scripting language in a proper IDE.
Agree, Gary. In flight Wi-Fi plus mobile international hotspots were a game changer. All of a sudden, I could be as productive anywhere in the world as I could be at the office. And travel a lot lighter since I didn’t have to take binders of documents for meetings. Before, a business trip would be a pain because you would get so behind.
The key to having an Assistant is knowing what work to delegate to them. Taking a month to have the assistant shadow you and showing what you expect. Is the best way. Not all jobs can use one. But it is a game changer
Please, if you’re gonna be one of these dbags, get a window seat. Otherwise, if you are sitting next to me I will feel frequent incontinence during the flight.
i find myself more productive inflight when I dont connect
I too generally prefer to remain offline when flying.
After being a regular of using Connexion by Boeing on a lot of 8+ hour flights around 20 years ago, I eventually backed off using the internet during my flights. Prefer to do work while on the ground; and if it’s to be done in the air, prefer to be offline when working in the air.
I prefer to just sip a bourbon and watch a movie.
> I wouldn’t even relinquish booking of my travel
Man after my own heart. I fight for that – even to the point of losing a contract. Hotels, flights, driving – that’s my private time, even if “they” are paying for it. I do not give up control of my private time.
I can and have compromised on the actual booking for a good, one-off reason. But I still approved the accommodations. And it had to be a one-off. If they want to do all the booking for the entire contract, no sir. I won’t be taking that contract.
Internet works pretty reliably on domestic US flights. Internationally internet is so unreliable as to be impossible to rely upon.
No. Just no. I ‘never’ do any work on a flight. It’s the ONE time where I can truly and completely disconnect. More people should try that. Just disconnect. Nothing can be ‘that’ important. Give the eyes and brain a rest. Go into a movie that you’re unlikely to see otherwise. Use the time to give the brain a rest.
I spend enough hours a day glued to my keyboard. I’ve always enjoyed the chance to just shut down for a while. If I want to write or put things in a journal that can all be done offline.
Here’s a few tips that work for me:
* Newer MacBook Pro power adapters (100W and 145W) often draw too much power and won’t charge. Solution: buy a 75W power adapter typically used for a MacBook Air. It won’t charge as fast, but it’s better than not working at all.
* I bring at least two portable chargers capable of charging a laptop
* There are many new second screen options that are light. I’ve tried using the Apple Vision Pro as well though that doesn’t work well if everyone wants the lights out
* If the WiFi isn’t great, cut your losses and try later instead of wasting an hour trying to connect . For example Panasonic isn’t great over the Atlantic but does well over Canada. Also depends on the number of passengers using it.
I also email some important articles back to myself so as to not forget about it. I’ve even emailed some of the VFTW articles back to myself, not that I would term any of that content to be important. Seriousleigh.