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AirPods Battery Hack: How I kept mine alive for an 8-hour flight
Published onMarch 29, 2025
The AirPods Pro 2 have more than enough battery life for a quick domestic flight, but nowhere near enough to last a journey over the Atlantic. I learned this the hard way when my headphones stopped working right before my eight-hour flight, leaving me no choice but to use my AirPods Pro 2. If you’re looking for ways to extend your AirPods Pro 2 battery life, here are a few things to try.
Patience is key
The easiest way to stretch the battery life of your AirPods Pro 2 is not using them — at least during taxi and take-off. Remember, every minute you hold off using them on the ground is a minute you gain in the air. It typically takes just 25 to 30 minutes from the moment you push back from the gate until you reach cruising altitude, so you won’t have to wait long. Plus, your total flight time includes the time it takes to get from the ground and into the air. So if your total flight time is 8 hours and 30 minutes, waiting to use your AirPods Pro 2 until you’re at 35,000 feet means you only need to keep your earbuds alive for 8 hours.
Is it nice listening to the engines at full throttle during take-off? No, probably not. So why settle for crappy playback when you can get better results by waiting?
Disable non-essential features
When it comes to prolonging battery life, the answers are often simple. This means turning off non-essential features like Spatial Audio, Conversation Awareness, Personalized Volume, Automatic Ear Detection, and Head Gestures — anything that requires additional hardware or software processing. The more features you can disable, the less work your AirPods — and their batteries — will have to do. All of these can be turned off in the Settings app of your Apple device.
Turn off Noise Control
Turning off Noise Control is an unfortunate but necessary step in preserving your AirPods’ battery life. This means no active noise cancelation, no Adaptive Mode, and no Transparency Mode — all of which require additional audio processing. In this case, you’ll have to rely entirely on your AirPods’ passive isolation performance.
To turn off Noise Control on the AirPods Pro 2, follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app on your Apple device and tap on your AirPods.
- Scroll down the menu and enable the setting labeled "Off Listening Mode".
- Scroll back to the top of the menu. Under "Noise Control", select the "Off" option.
For the best results, I highly recommend investing in a pair of memory foam ear tips from a company like Comply, as memory foam ear tips tend to provide a better seal, helping to block out more noise.
In my case, listening with ANC off sounded fine on the plane. I could hear the hum of the plane’s engines (an A320 cabin is fairly loud between 230 and 500Hz), but it didn’t drown out my music. I had to turn up the volume a bit more than usual, but the AirPods Pro 2 blocked enough noise that I didn’t have to raise the volume dangerously high.
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But how much more playtime do you really get with ANC off? Is there a meaningful difference in battery life? In our battery test, the AirPods Pro 2 lasted 6 hours and 31 minutes with Noise Control off, compared to 5 hours and 43 minutes with ANC on. Your results may vary due to factors such as battery wear, but there’s no doubt that disabling Noise Control can be useful when battery life is a luxury.
Lower the volume
The faster you drive a car, the more fuel you consume. The same principle often applies to earbuds: the louder you turn up the volume, the more juice you use. If you can’t listen to your AirPods Pro 2 without ANC on, or if your upcoming flight is shorter than mine was, then you can at least slow your battery consumption by keeping the volume at a moderate level. For best results, try not to exceed 50% volume to maximize playback time.
Waving the white flag
If your flight is just too long, or your AirPods Pro 2 are a few years old, you may eventually hear the dreaded low-battery chime. At this point, you’ll have no choice but to place your earbuds into the charging case and wait for them to top up.
The good news? The AirPods Pro 2 don’t take long to recharge. It usually takes 60-90 minutes to charge from 0% to 100%, and just five minutes of charging yields 60 minutes of playback. In my case, my AirPods Pro 2 died with two hours left in the flight. I took a short nap and let them charge for about 20 minutes, which gave me more than enough playtime for the rest of the journey.
The tiny batteries in the AirPods Pro 2 can only last so long, even with every extra feature turned off. But when the low-battery chime sounds, it’s reassuring to know that a quick top-up can get you back to listening in no time.