In Android 13 QPR1, the airplane mode behavior has changed. When you first turn on airplane mode, both Wi-Fi AND Bluetooth are turned off. If you then turn either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth back on (or both), Android will remember that choice the next time you turn on airplane mode.
This change shouldn’t be exclusive to Pixels. It’s part of the set of changes tagged “APM enhancement” in AOSP. The relevant changes in the Bluetooth and WiFi modules are available in AOSP.
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(The Bluetooth module isn’t updatable outside of an OTA update in Android 13, whereas the WiFi module is. The Bluetooth module will become updatable in Android 14, though.)
Power users might know that Android already offers a setting to control which radios should be toggled when airplane mode is enabled. However, it requires an ADB command to change.
Since Android 11, BT wouldn’t be turned off when the airplane was enabled. The APM enhancement in Android 13 adds WiFi as a radio you can keep on, lets you choose whether WiFi/BT should be kept on, and adds a helpful notification that leads to a support page.