18 Air Travel tips

18 Air Travel Tips
from Mark J. Stoddard
My first flight was as a child returning with my family from an Air Force tour of duty in Germany. The plane was a TWA Constellation propellor plane. Since then my wife Elizabeth and my brother Eric have garnered too many seat callous and taken more than 30,000 friends as passengers on our cruises and tours in the USSR, Russia, Ukraine, China, all over the Pacific rim and islands, Australia/New Zealand, Central and South America, so many African and Middle East countries, India and "IndoChina" as well as Europe. So...we ought to share our findings on how to enjoy or survive flying on today's airlines.

1. Bring your own water bottle or travel stein/mug of 24-32 oz size with its own straw or have your own straw. The airlines will fill it with water for you.
2. If you’d like a bit of extra taste, no to low calorie powdered flavor packets are widely available and inexpensive. Many have just the low cal powder with vitamins and others add extra energy items like caffeine. The later is not recommended on sleeping flights!
3. Don’t drink alcohol or soft drinks on the flight. You’ll dehydrate fast.
4. Be careful of purchased water that it is sodium free. Women in particular will swell up from the extra sodium.
5. Avoid ice. The ice bucket is often left out and new ice added. The bucket can, in theory, collect unwanted microbes. Besides, ice makes the water colder and can keep you from get fully hydrated.
6. Leave the airflow vent open the entire trip although point it away from you once you’ve got the temperature right. Leaving it open encourages necessary airflow to keep exchanging fresh air for the yuck we spew into the plane’s enclosed, highly populated atmosphere.
7. Bring your own blanket if needed. Scarfs are great too. The airline blankets may be laundered, but then again, maybe somebody just used it and neatly put it back.
8. Neck pillows of foam and cloth are great. Easy to carry with you. Airline pillows should be abbreviated to “airline pills”. Too small and often unavailable. Inflatable pillows may have problems with differing altitudes.
9. On long flights the back rows are usually the last seats given out and people avoid them. They can be a GREAT place to have a few empty seats next to you. I’ve often stretched out on 4 middle seats on the backrow.
10. Be sure whatever seat you get has the maximum allowed recline. Any seats in front of a bulkhead or an emergency row rarely recline at all.
11. On long flights that offer food, check to see if the menu offers what you can eat. So many people are now allergic to foods or have gluten and other problems, the airlines now offer select menus that help with that. Food still isn’t all that good, but, you’ll get served first. Caution on diabetic meals: so many diabetic meals I’ve had in the past were filled with carbohydrates.
12. For long flights that land in the morning to early afternoon, it’s best to take a sleeping aid and get all the sleep you can, otherwise you’re in for a day of fighting to stay awake while touring or in meetings. Melatonin is a preferred sleep aid for many. Others get a pill prescribed by their doctor. Others use the blue pill from Costco. A half a pill knocks me out. I also sometimes use Tizanidine which is a muscle relaxant for my back. In minutes I’m out cold for two hours or more. Once you land, get the “kick-a-poo” juice going that keeps you awake. Best to NOT sleep during the day. Your sleep cycle gets all messed up. Best to fight through it and about 9 PM, when the bed is screaming for you to come to it, take another sleep aid. Granted, you’re so tired you’ll quickly fall asleep, but after three or four hours you may awaken because your body clock is still with your home time zone. The sleep aid usually keeps you prone through the night, waking up refreshed and often having won the jet lag war. However, I always take another sleep aid the next night because I have a stubborn sleep cycle. Some valiantly fight the jet lag without the sleeping aids and often lose.
13. For long flights that land in the late afternoon or early evening, fight the urge to sleep on the plane. Watch a ton of movies. If you nod off for a half hour snooze, great. But generally stay awake for most of the flight. You’ll get to your bedroom (home or hotel) often with just enough time for pleasantries, a meal, a shower and giving in to your bed. Don’t let your body fool you and tell you you’re tired enough to sleep through the night. No. Your body is still on your home time zone and you’ll be wide awake at 3 AM. Take the sleeping aid advise given above.
14. Some airlines are close to offering a credit card that lets you pay for your flights on smaller monthly payments – buy now, fly later and keep paying later. Airlines are finding you’ll end up discovering it is worth flying MORE. Most of those discussing offering such a plane charge no interest or premiums for the service.
15. Ever notice when you take your suitcase to the ticket counter it is LUGGAGE, but when you go to the carousel after the flight, it is now BAGGAGE? We can’t figure that out, but we can figure out how to get your luggage faster. It’s called FILO – first in, last out. The first luggage down the belt is loaded on the plane, most of the time, first. All the other luggage comes before. When you land, all that baggage goes onto the carousel first, and your baggage is last. Wait in line before or after.
16. In some foreign airports, luggage thieves wait by the carousels and take luggage that’s been going around a few times, figuring the owners are delayed. I like to get to the carousel quickly to watch the baggage coming out the shoot. I make sure I watch it go around until it meets me, never chasing after it. Relax and enjoy the aroma of luggage transformed.
17. Before you get your bags, grab a cart. Don’t hero the luggage. For one thing the overzealous taxi drivers love to grab the bags out of people’s hands to “help you with such a load!” The cart keeps them at bay. If you’re with a group, establish a central meet place outside customs. Our groups will always be met by our staff with signs clearly with our Heart of Russia Cruises logo…and a bright shining smile on a wonderful person.
18. When travelling to a destination far away, a lay over in a city 3-4 hours away from your final destination can be very relaxing and help you be ready to enjoy your excursion. Airlines are understaffed and may reroute you all over kingdom come to consolidate their planes that have full flight crew. A flight from the west coast USA to Russia that would normally be 4 hours to NYC, 2-3 hours layover, a 7-hour flight to a European airport with a 2 hour layover and then 2-3 hours to Moscow could be about 17 hours. If the airlines reroute you another 5 hours could be added. It’s a hangover from COVID. That extra night going and coming could give you great peace of mind and a stronger body.