AppleNews+ offline does not work in Airplane Mode

Help!

AppleNews+ works great...when you have WiFi. After downloading a bunch of magazines for a 10 hour flight I was disappointed. Made sure at the airport I was good to go (iPad Pro 10.5 w/256GB Ram) and put my iPad on airplane mode. After opening the app on the flight to News+ all I get is a white screen with the spinning wheel. After several minutes...just the spinning wheel. I could not read anything I had liked/subscribed and downloaded. So I checked on my iPhone X (also in airplane mode) and the spinning circle of death there too. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone find a solution? Offline mode that doesn't work offline makes this service pretty much useless. And why isn't there a better support page/discussion group for News+?