The Long Haul..Survival

XxAshlingxX

Whats your tips for making long haul ( economy class ) less stressful.....

My tips are.

• Pick window seats if you would like to sleep without being disturbed by people who may ask to pass you
• Take some snacks, you may not like the food served or may get hungery between meals
• Don't get on plane hungry
• Take your own headphones
• Pack hand wipes or baby wipes to freshen up
• Comfort over fashion, chances are you will not meet anyone you know on the flight
• Bulk head = kids
• Pack Puzzles,books,ipods,ipads etc.....
• Use a small backpack instead of a handbag as it gives you a free hand
• Pack a change of clothes, you never know what might happen ..

That's all I can think of now..

Add your own tips

miamee

Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.

Bring a little travel pillow for sleeping in comfort.

As soon as you get on the flight, change your watch to the timezone of your destination - this gives you the entire flight to get used to the new time zone and also the arrival time is local time, easier to calculate time left.

ardmacha

Add your own tips

inflatable neck cushion

athtrasna

XxAshlingxX wrote: »

Whats your tips for making long haul ( economy class ) less stressful.....

My tips are.

• Take your own NOISE CANCELLING headphones
  

That's all I can think of now..

FYP The difference they make is huge and you can pick up Phillips ones for around €30 so they don't have to break the bank.

Pat Mustard

It's better to eat a little too much or too often while travelling, than to miss meals. Unless it's a trip with which you are familiar, you can't be certain when your next opportunity to eat will be. If you have missed meals, not only will you be hungry, you may be stressed and irritable. Having eaten, you will relax a little.

I have never regretted bringing a set of earplugs. Sometimes other passengers are noisy.

Tipperary animal lover

Be blessed to get an upgrade!!! Always helps

ProudDUB

A little spritzer bottle of chilled water. It's lovely to spritz onto your face to keep your face feeling fresh & moisturized, without having to get up to use the bathrooms. Even if its not something you do on a day to day basis, hours and hours in a pressurized cabin with recycled air can really dry out your skin.

Hand wipes, or face cream to do the same thing, but make sure that they are non scented. There is nothing worse than sitting beside something performing their toilette with smelly stuff that will linger for ages, as their is no fresh air for the odours to dissipate into. :mad:

Yamanoto

Being stuck beside a complete stranger in a confined space for hours on end is no one's real idea of fun. Engaging in a short & simple bit of small talk with those sat beside you prior to take-off can be no bad thing. Very occasionally, I've had to point out to someone that they're encroaching on my personal space (nothing petty tbh, but certain folks can take the pi$$ if allowed to).

You'd be surprised how much more amenable folks are to those little requests co-travellers often make of each other, when the ice has been broken even to a small extent beforehand.

coylemj

Yamanoto wrote: »

Being stuck beside a complete stranger in a confined space for hours on end is no one's real idea of fun. Engaging in a short & simple bit of small talk with those sat beside you prior to take-off can be no bad thing. Very occasionally, I've had to point out to someone that they're encroaching on my personal space (nothing petty tbh, but certain folks can take the pi$$ if allowed to).

You'd be surprised how much more amenable folks are to those little requests co-travellers often make of each other, when the ice has been broken even to a small extent beforehand.

It can also go spectacularly wrong if your neighbour views your 'request' the wrong way i.e. he figures he's sitting beside a petty little prick who insists on establishing his turf before the plane evens gets off the ground.

Do you ever allow for the fact that your next door neighbour is a nervous flyer who simply fidgets about a bit at the beginning of the flight but who will probably settle down once the plane takes off?

clairefontaine

Slippers.

My feet swelled up so much on a long haul I couldn't fit into my shoes.

coylemj

clairefontaine wrote: »

Slippers.

My feet swelled up so much on a long haul I couldn't fit into my shoes.

That happens on long-haul flights for sure. What you need to do is loosen your shoes as soon as you're seated and when you land at your destination, just tie the laces or the buckles loosely enough to keep the shoes on because your feet will swell due to the lower air pressure on board.

Travel socks, or tense your feet every so often, or get up and walk about every so often will reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis.

clairefontaine

coylemj wrote: »

That happens on long-haul flights for sure. What you need to do is loosen your shoes as soon as you're seated and when you land at your destination, just tie the laces or the buckles loosely enough to keep the shoes on because your feet will swell due to the lower air pressure on board.

Travel socks, or tense your feet every so often, or get up and walk about every so often will reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis.

I take off my shoes and put on my slippers very early in the flight. And definitely walk around a lot. Also if you can afford it, upgrade to premium economy.

I hate heathrow for stopovers too. Would put that on my list of no nos.

coylemj

clairefontaine wrote: »

I take off my shoes and put on my slippers very early in the flight. And definitely walk around a lot. Also if you can afford it, upgrade to premium economy.

Can I ask how the upgrade to premium economy relieves the problem of your feet swelling up? Is it because you get so p1ssed on the free wine that you don't notice?

Please don't take this query too seriously.

clairefontaine

coylemj wrote: »

Can I ask how the upgrade to premium economy relieves the problem of your feet swelling up? Is it because you get so p1ssed on the free wine that you don't notice?

Please don't take this query too seriously.

Lol. No it doesn't relieve that problem! Relieves the problem of envy as you are doing your walk around the plane and mooch back to peasant class.

Yamanoto

coylemj wrote: »

It can also go spectacularly wrong if your neighbour views your 'request' the wrong way i.e. he figures he's sitting beside a petty little prick who insists on establishing his turf before the plane evens gets off the ground.

Do you ever allow for the fact that your next door neighbour is a nervous flyer who simply fidgets about a bit at the beginning of the flight but who will probably settle down once the plane takes off?

No you've misinterpreted me coylemj, though perhaps I didn't explain it too clearly.

I'm not talking about immediately dictating terms to your fellow traveller prior to take-off - that'd be a wholly unreasonable & dickish thing to do.

Say 3 or 4 hours into a flight, someone may stretch out in such a way that restricts your own comfort e.g. someone lies sideways in their own seat, resulting in their legs sharing the space in the seat in front of yours.

What I'm saying is, asking them (politely) to readjust is made all the easier if you've established even a little rapport.

Columbia

Here's what I do (others will disagree with various things);

Take several forms of entertainment. For me this means laptop, Kindle and MP3 player. Take noise-cancelling earphones, they'll help you escape the engine noise which can be a big source of stress on a long flight. Try to get semi-decent earphones that you can wear for 4-6 hours without them becoming uncomfortable.

Get on the plane fully rested. I never sleep on flights regardless of how tired I am, so I'd rather at least feel refreshed for the flight. Other people do the opposite; whatever works for you.

Stick your bag in the overhead compartment, not under seat in front. You'll be more comfortable if you don't crowd your legroom.

Pick an aisle seat. You'll have to get up on occasion, but if you're not sleeping it's not really a problem. Also, you are free to stand up and sit down to retrieve whatever you want from the overhead compartment. You can come and go to the bathroom as you please, no feeling awkward about asking to leave your seat twice in the space of an hour.

KeithM89

Any flight over 9/10 hours is well worth the money to upgrade to PE/business/first.
Went from Bangkok to Heathrow on a 13hr flight and it was pure hell.

Sleeping tablets are a great help but the seats in economy are never comfortable.

clairefontaine

Melatonin is great for knocking you out on a flight. Over the counter in many countries.

coylemj

Yamanoto wrote: »

No you've misinterpreted me coylemj, though perhaps I didn't explain it too clearly.

I'm not talking about immediately dictating terms to your fellow traveller prior to take-off - that'd be a wholly unreasonable & dickish thing to do.

Apologies if you think I 'misinterpreted' you but this is what you said in your earlier post, I've emboldened the relevant part of your post below..

Maybe you engage in smalltalk with your neighbour out of politeness but I got the distinctive impression that you do so for the sole purpose of laying down territorial boundaries....

Yamanoto wrote: »

Engaging in a short & simple bit of small talk with those sat beside you prior to take-off can be no bad thing. Very occasionally, I've had to point out to someone that they're encroaching on my personal space (nothing petty tbh, but certain folks can take the pi$$ if allowed to).

Yamanoto

clairefontaine wrote: »

Melatonin is great for knocking you out on a flight. Over the counter in many countries.

I was chatting with a Turkish lady on a LHR-LAX flight last week who swears by the stuff.

I'd been telling her I've never been able to sleep soundly on long-haul flights (even on the rare occasions I've flown in business).

The idea of taking a prescription sleeping pill doesn't appeal, so perhaps this is something worth looking at.

Pat Mustard

I reckon a lot of these sober passengers who sleep so well on flights are on Valium.

Any sober person who can sleep with their head hanging forward at an awkward angle is on some sort of medication.

Yamanoto

coylemj wrote: »

but I got the distinctive impression that you do so for the sole purpose of laying down territorial boundaries....

No, really not the case at all.

I've flown an awful lot of long-haul over the past 6 years & I've never had anything approaching an angry word with another passenger. There's enough low-level stress associated with flying nowadays, without adding to it by engaging in nonsense.

Corkbah

The Mustard wrote: »

I reckon a lot of these sober passengers who sleep so well on flights are on Valium.

Any sober person who can sleep with their head hanging forward at an awkward angle is on some sort of medication.

I sleep ok on flights.... without alcohol or drugs .... lol.... once as a teenager fell asleep sitting upright (myself and friends were having a marathon fifa session/tournament ... we were up around 30hours playing playstation....oh the memories !!)

I usually fall asleep within 5mins of going to bed ... in normal circumstances.

my fiancee has probs sleeping on flights.

oh and getting back on topic.....

nars do a face rejuvinating cream.... my sis works for Nars and gave some to myself and fiancee we think its fantastic.... similar to the spritz spray mentioned earlier....perfect for longhaul flights.

we normally watch whatever movies are on ...or if theres a selection ... we start a movie at the same time so were both enjoying it together.

tricky D

clairefontaine wrote: »

I hate heathrow for stopovers too. Would put that on my list of no nos.

Can you elaborate on this, pls. I'm looking at a Heathrow stopover soon (terminal 1 > terminal 5) and would like to know what to look out for, avoid, tips, etc.

clairefontaine

tricky D wrote: »

Can you elaborate on this, pls. I'm looking at a Heathrow stopover soon (terminal 1 > terminal 5) and would like to know what to look out for, avoid, tips, etc.

I did that. Terminal 5. It's airless. Its hot and stuffy. You can't leave without being escorted out of the building. So if you want to get some air or have a smoke you need about 45 minutes to get out and back, big huge hikes and also have to go through security all over again. I would avoid if I could.

Yamanoto

tricky D wrote: »

Can you elaborate on this, pls. I'm looking at a Heathrow stopover soon (terminal 1 > terminal 5) and would like to know what to look out for, avoid, tips, etc.

I quite like T5 itself, though the process of getting there is a chore and the concourse is always thronged.

If you're connecting with EI, try for a seat at the back of the aircraft. Passengers with connecting flights stay onboard while others disembark. You'll then exit from the aft to an awaiting bus which takes you to the flight connections centre (where you'll jump another bus to T5).

Then there's a queue for a boarding pass check before taking an escalator up a level to pass through security. Back down a level to hop on the train to your gate & you're done.

Aer Lingus are shifting to Heatrow's new T2 next summer & it'll be interesting to see how that impacts on flight connections from a passenger perspective.

If you've any chance of connecting via Schipol, it's an altogether easier thing to do imo.

brettmirl

Use http://www.seatguru.com/ when picking your seat (if you can)

Pack a phone charger or battery charger to keep your phone/tablet charged if your flight gets delayed.

I posted this in another thread...

I find that a window seat is best - I pick left side.
That way you can lean up against the side of plane.
Also - nobody will wake you up to get to the toilet.
Sometimes you'll be lucky and get nobody in the middle.
Log into flight in advance and select seat.

buy one of those comfy neck pillows - not the inflatable ones. use airline pillow also for extra cushion against the side of plane when you have window seat.
get an eye / blackout mask.
get earplugs.
music and good headphones for blocking out all the annoying announcements and when disembarking / embarking.

maybe get a sleeping pill or over-the-counter product. plan sleep according to what time you'll be landing at.

buy your own bottle of water to bring on plane.

ncmc

Avoid alcohol like the plague! It leaves you even more dehydrated than usual and can mess with your sleep pattern and therefore exacerbate jet lag.

Be organised. Have your passport and ticket ready and easy to access, make sure your hand luggage complies with all the rules, wear slip on shoes and no belt/jewellery of possible. All of this makes getting through security so much easier.

Take a walk up and down the cabin and take a drink of water once every hour.

Take a book that you're already interested in rather than attempting to start a new book when it can be hard to concentrate.

Try and watch a movie, it really kills time.

Take a little freshen up kit, deodorant, moisturiser and brushing your teeth can really make you feel human again.

Try and take a nap. I'm not one for sleeping on a plane, but even closing your eyes for 20 mins can help you feel rested.

coylemj

Small washbag and a clean t-shirt. Nothing freshens you up better than a quick scrub and a clean shirt about an hour before landing - before your fellow passengers wake up and start queuing for the toilets.

I also loosen my shoelaces before take-off and when we land at the destination, I'll tie them loosely until I'm on the ground about an hour and the feet have adjusted to the higher air pressure.

killbillvol2

Hydration - no alcohol and loads of water. I pick up 2-3 litres of water in the airport and guzzle it down.
A variety of entertainment - I'd agree with ncmc about being into a book before the flight. I also like to have a TV series or two on my tablet. 4 or 5 episodes can roll into one and kill a lot of time. Mad Men is loaded for next week.
Playlists suitable for sleep on your Ipod. I've a load of mellow jazz and smooth classical music ready - no big contrasts in volume and no voices.
Don't fret about sleeping, if it comes it comes. Personally I prefer daylight flights as I don't feel I need to sleep.

Pythia

Bring a toothbrush and brush on the plane. Nothing makes you feel fresher!