How reliable is the wifi onboard from New York to Hong Kong. Was hoping to reduce my vacation days and work onboard.

Does anyone have experience working with Global Protect VPN on these flights?

boingo (WestJet) gives me zero issues when working onboard.

It's not something I've tried but I note that the CX website says that "Wi-Fi is unavailable over the northern polar region (common on flights to North America)", but also Boingo is available, so if that works with your VPN on WestJet then I guess it will work (where wifi is available at all) on CX.

I have some bad news about using a VPN on CX metal. The VPN connection nicely sets up and within a minute, the VPN connection drops.

This happens for both a commercially available VPN as well as private company (so non-published IP's) VPN connections.

Looks to me, deep packet inspection is being done (the great China Firewall mechanism) and everything looking like a VPN just gets a "connection closed" on both sides. Restarting the VPN connection brings back the VPN online and a minute later, the connection is gone again.

So, IF you want to do VPN, you will need obfuscating VPN versions.

JFK HKG flies the Polar routing. The satellite reception cuts out around 60N and resume when back at that latitude.

Others on this forum have probably use the wifi way more than myself, but my 2 experience in the last 6 months flying HKG-JFK on the A350 on even the pacific route, the wifi was quite slow and at times very spotty. I have definitely had better wifi on several other airlines.

Just for the record there are no 'Chinese' fire-walls in operation in Hong Kong and we often use a popular normal VPN
One of my sons reports that he has had no problem using a VPN with Cathay Wi-Fi . I don't have details as its beyond my understand
Most reports are that CX Wi-Fi is good and I have never found it to be slow other than as stated above re the 'pole.'

What about SFO/LAX/YVR-HKG flights? Any connectivity issues?

Not true.. have used both commercially available VPN (Hotspot shield), as well as my own personal VPN connection to both private servers in HK and NY.. all worked fine, except it does get cut off randomly and I have to reconnect.. But definitely not every minute as you claim...

But back to OP's question, it really depends on the routing that day.. I've taken the JFK 5 to 6 roundtrips the past12 months.. had flights fly way up north over the pole and the connection is stable even when it's supposedly over 60N, but sometimes randomly flying over Wisconsin or parts of China, the internet would get cut off for 45 mins... so YMMV.. but generally wifi coverage seems to be over 80% of the flight..

Maybe in the past, VPN use was OK, though my data point on an A350, just a couple of days ago, does show differently. The VPN dropped out persistently. Without VPN, the wifi is fine.

Possibly your VPN is the problem Cambo OR a problem with that aircrafts wifi. Others report little difficulty.

Who knows, let me summarize:
- In the lounge, before boarding, the VPN worked fine (I always use a VPN on my laptop).
- On board, the wifi worked fine, without VPN.
- The moment, I start the VPN, I have traffic through the VPN for something like a minute.
- Then the VPN kicks out.
- Then the wifi works fine again (once the change of IP address has trickled down to the applications).
- In the Wing F lounge at HKG, the wifi worked fine, as well as the use of the VPN.

And I use 2 different VPN "brands": ProtonVPN and my company VPN.

The VPN type for both is OpenVPN.

So, just make up your mind.

And, yep, probably some VPN's / VPN-types may work, when these have VPN obfuscating activated by default (for example), my VPN's don't have that.

Or so to say: Don't count on the VPN working properly, when flying CX on an A350 and have alternatives available.

It's too bad you don't have ExpressVPN or Google One VPN.

Same here, but the route may be the cause.

Well, why use a VPN:
- Prevent ISP's from intruding on your privacy.
- Get a public-facing IP in another location, to overcome regional restrictions.
- Be able to get some better routing to the world, when located in a country with bad internet connections to the outside world.

Nr 2 is clear. Nr 3 will be too difficult for most to understand, so I leave it as is.

And number 1: Yeah, have a Google VPN, so they really can track what you do, now not only on 1 device, but also over multiple devices, so IF privacy is your concern, don't use the Google One VPN. Its main target is to intrude on your privacy (serve you better with stuff they earn money on, not what you need) and at the same time, lock out the competition to collect privacy-relevant details, to which now only Google has access. Let's not forget, the original Google mission statement of "don't be evil", has been dropped a long time ago.

ExpressVPN: I don't have experience with that brand, though went for ProtonVPN because of the principle privacy approach they have, and being originating from Switzerland. Privacy is not something many if not most commercial VPN providers have as a target, their primary goal is making money, sacrificing one's privacy when whatever government asked for account owner details. Not to say, probably selling the collected privacy-sensitive info to the highest bidder, just like several (professional) virus scanners do.

So, if one wants privacy, scratch the head, about one's VPN brand selection.

Paloalto VPN's fine, despite the slow speed Cathay Pacific and Boingo Wifi

Apps/services that don't work onboard: Skypeout, Telegram, Bloomberg Anywhere (???) (maybe Bloomberg News not NSL-compliant...)