Taking a flight has always felt like one of the last rituals of the human condition where disconnection was still possible. There is something quietly bittersweet about it. The last texts sent, the goodbye calls made, the soft “I will miss yous” offered before the world slips out of reach. Then comes the waiting: loved ones tracking your path across the sky, sending their messages only when they imagine you’ve landed, when they believe you’ve found your signal again. For a few suspended hours, life allows a rare interlude, an enforced distance, a pocket of solitude in an always-available world.

But with the spread of onboard Wi-Fi, even this gentle distance, this small modern human ritual of absence, is beginning to vanish.