Connecting to public wi-fi networks with their captive portals is always a bit of a wonky proposition, and nothing makes public wi-fi wonkier than using it on a plane.

I believe that the resurgence of https made things harder – if the captive portal doesn’t kick in, no secure traffic can happen – and over time I just started remembering that “captive.apple.com” is a reliable HTTP-only destination to visit.

But I noticed this week that United’s onboard wi-fi network is called “Unitedwifi.com” as a reminder where to go once you are connected, to avoid that problem. I thought this was a nice touch.