Airalo Global + and using imessage and FaceTime over wifi

This is somewhat confusing, because you are asking about how to use wi-fi and your info
is about your eSim, which has no relevance to using wi-fi.

And, the specifics will to some extent depend on the phone you have, which since you are
mentioning FaceTime, is I assume, an iPhone?

Anyways, in general, to avoid using any data (which makes me wonder why you got the eSim),
you can put your phone in airplane mode and then connect to wi-fi. This will deactivate (so to
speak) both Sim cards, as you are totally turning off cellular data.

I am not 100% sure about this part, but, you should be able to switch between Sim cards in
your phone settings menu. Since you appear to have a voice/text + data eSim, it's all or none
when you switch. Since you got an eSim for Italy, one might assume you don't want to use your
home carrier account at all. When you exit airplane mode, the Sim you have activated will be the
one that is being used, for whatever, presumably Airalo.

There are a lot of posts on related aspects of this topic in the subforum by people who know more
and have more experience than me.

It sounds to me like you are under the impression that getting an e-sim gives you wifi. It does not. It gives you cellular data, only the data will be on the Airalo plan rather than your normal cellular plan. But yes - your calls and texts will show up as if from your primary number, unless you choose for them not to.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109317
Under the "Use two phone numbers for calls, messages, and data" section on the page linked above it says:
When you call one of your contacts, you don't need to choose which number to use every time. By default, your iPhone uses the same number that you used the last time you called that contact. If you haven't called that contact, your iPhone uses your default number.

Wifi is something that you will find in airports, hotels, coffee shops, etc that offer wifi services. If you connect to their wifi, you wouldn't use your cellular data for your calls and texts.

So when you are out and about, if you want to text someone, you'll be doing it via cellular data. Then when you are back at your hotel, you can connect to the hotel's wifi and not use any cellular data.

Thank you for your responses. To clarify, I do have an iphone 16 Plus. I got an Airalo Global + Esim with calls/text and data because I am not using an international plan on my primary/home number and I want to be able to make a call in case of an emergency or other important reasons if needed from cellular data and not WiFi. I also wanted to have some cellular data if I need to use Google Maps or searching for activities when WiFi is not available or limited while we travel.

So, I didn't state this clearly in my earlier post: I plan to only imessage and FaceTime or What's App with my contacts who are Iphone users through WiFI. My confusion is I'm not clear on how to imessage over WiFi (so texting on my iphone only to another iphone) on my primary line when my secondary(esim) line is ON and my primary line is OFF? When I installed the esim, I set it to only use "primary line" for imessages and FaceTime. Do I need to turn the primary line ON again then put it into Airplane Mode to access WiFi and then text? We did a test and turned BOTH the Primary and Secondary(esim) lines ON and then I was able to see both lines and imessage over WiFi with my primary number. When we did a test when the primary line was off and the secondary/esim was on, there was no option to be able to use the primary number to imessage. I think I figured it out for now!

I'll post back here after Italy to share how it all worked for anyone else who may also find it confusing.

I think I understand what you are asking. We were in New Zealand last month and my husband got an esim that was talk/text and data. I did not get a sim, I just used his data as a hotspot, this was our first time doing this. I stayed in airplane mode the whole time and was able to iMessage and FaceTime to family back in the states using wifi, this is what I used to do pre covid when we did not have (need) data. I was also able to iMessage while hot spotting his data. He was unable to imessage or facetime using the new zealand esim, I tried to iMessage him and it wouldn't work while we were both on wifi at hotels. We also use WhatsApp so it was no problem for us communicating with home. In the past if we needed to make a call to home I would leave my cellular data off and turn my phone off airplane mode and I could make a call or text the vendors/hotels. Now the most interesting thing to us is we have purchased physical sims for our phones for 4 countries- Australia, Italy, Croatia and Greece- and we were able to iMessage and FaceTime even though we have a foreign sim in our phone. So the esim does not work the same. I am not the technical person at all but I would say, based on what we talked about doing but did not try, was you would need to turn off the cellular data and put the phone in airplane mode then turn off the airalo esim and turn your local sim back on then get on wifi and iMessage and face time would work?? Untested but wondering what will happen. We won't try new theory until August. Good luck!