Apple Music not playing downloaded songs when airplane mode

I’ve got Apple Music subscription, using updated iOS15.2 in iPhone 13 Pro Max downloaded few songs from my previously created playlist to listen while taking a 12h fight but…. None of them played.

When opening Apple Music all the songs are there under “dowloaded” tab but they do not play. The play button seems not sim anything but after few seconds a weird noise starts to be played and no music is coming out. Only noise.

Trying to skip and play the next track also does not work. Restarting the iPhone did not solve the issue. So there was me during my entire flight with no music whatsoever. When I arrived at my destination and got Internet signal, everything started to play perfectly, out of the blue, but the offline tracks take take at least 5 seconds to start playing.

So, why there is an option to download music to listen offline if you need internet to get them to work?

Shame on you Apple for such terrible software!!!

Going back to Spotify with no regrets. Their audio quality is indeed worse but at least they play offline when needed.