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It’s a horror story in two words: No Wi-Fi.
But this was reality for one man who had no internet connection on his Ryanair flight to Benidorm that he paid just £16.99 for.
Graham White, 48, boarded a flight from Newcastle to Alicante, a city about 30 miles west of the holiday hotspot, on July 25 with his friend.
His mate assumed that the plane would have on-board Wi-Fi, only to realise he’d have to rawdog the flight and, we assume, be filled with existential dread.
In an exchange captured on TikTok, Graham asked the flight attendants why the internet wasn’t working thousands of miles up in the air.
One replied: ‘We don’t do Wi-Fi.’
Not giving up that easily, Graham half-joked: ‘Would the pilot let me use his hotspot?’
Another cabin crew member clarified they ‘don’t have it at all’, something that Graham’s friend ‘couldn’t believe’, he said.
Sitting behind him, his friend remarked: ‘You’re lucky you have a seatbelt; you’re on Ryanair.’
And at least one user agreed, writing: ‘No Wi-Fi, but their card machines work to sell you things.’
On whether there’s Wi-Fi on their planes, Ryanair’s website states, rather simply: ‘No.’
While Graham would be fine without internet on a short-haul flight, medical experts warn against trying to rawdog long-haul trips.
Rawdogging – surviving a task without a cushion – on a trip tends to include reading a book rather than watching Netflix.
Travel rawdoggers have previously told Metro how trips are a great excuse to do a digital detox.
But others online have taken it to mean going without food, water or moving, just staring into the abyss of the in-flight map for eight hours.
This version of rawdogging is too, well, raw, for experts like Tobba Vigfusdóttir, psychologist and CEO of Kara Connect.
She said: ‘Some people may find it more relaxing to engage in familiar activities like reading or watching a movie, which can also provide a sense of comfort and escapism.’
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