How to Enable Airplane Mode on FunOS via Terminal

If you’re using a laptop or portable device, there may be times when you want to quickly disable all wireless communications — such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — to conserve battery, comply with airline regulations, or simply work offline. This feature is commonly known as Airplane Mode.

In this article, you’ll learn how to enable and disable Airplane Mode on FunOS using the command line, specifically with the rfkill tool. This method is fast, effective, and works even on minimal systems without a graphical interface.

Table of Contents

What is Airplane Mode?

Airplane Mode is a feature that disables a device’s wireless communication capabilities. This includes:

Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
WWAN (Mobile broadband)
NFC, if applicable

When enabled, Airplane Mode helps you comply with in-flight regulations and can also help save power by turning off unused radios.

Unlike smartphones, Linux does not have a one-click Airplane Mode toggle in all desktop environments, but you can easily achieve the same result using the terminal with rfkill.

How to Enable Airplane Mode on FunOS

Follow these steps to turn on Airplane Mode using the rfkill command-line tool:

Step 1: Install `rfkill`

First, ensure that rfkill is installed on your system. Open a Terminal and run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install rfkill

This installs the tool needed to manage radio frequency devices like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Step 2: Check Device Status

To view the current status of your wireless devices, use the following command:

rfkill list

This will output something like:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Soft blocked: yes means the device is disabled via software.
Hard blocked: yes means the device is disabled via hardware (e.g., a physical switch or BIOS setting).

Step 3: Enable Airplane Mode (Block All Radios)

To enable Airplane Mode and turn off all radio devices:

sudo rfkill block all

This command will soft-block all wireless radios on your system.

Step 4: Verify the Status

You can check if the devices have been successfully blocked by running:

rfkill list

You should now see:

Soft blocked: yes

for all listed devices.

How to Disable Airplane Mode on FunOS

When you’re ready to go back online, you can disable Airplane Mode by unblocking all radio devices:

sudo rfkill unblock all

Run rfkill list again to confirm that all radios have been re-enabled.

Conclusion

Airplane Mode is a useful feature for disabling all wireless communication on your system with a single command. On FunOS, this can be achieved easily using the rfkill utility from the terminal. It’s especially handy for laptops, secure environments, or times when you want to conserve battery.

For users who manage Bluetooth using Blueman or rely on NetworkManager, another method using nmcli may also be appropriate. However, rfkill is lightweight, works system-wide, and doesn’t depend on additional services — making it ideal for FunOS users who value simplicity and control.