| Brief Guide to Air Travel |
| Booking the flight |
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Generally speaking, for most flights, the earlier you book, the better the chance of a good deal. If you can, try to avoid the high seasons, such as school holidays.
'Flight + accommodation' deals can produce some astonishingly good prices. 'Flight + car hire' deals may not be so advantageous: check out independent car hire prices for comparison, and make sure you are covered for full insurance, notably Damage Excess Waiver. (The insurance excess on hire cars can be massive, and the insurance to cover the excess similarly extortionate, especially if you pay for it when you pick up the car.) If you want to hire a car at a small airport, make sure that there are car hire agencies on site, and that they will be open when you need them (not always the case). Plan how you are going to get to the airport. Make sure you factor in the cost of getting to and from the airport, and that your flight departure and arrival times make economic sense in the light of this. An early-morning departure may be cheap, but it may mean having to spend a night in an airport hotel to catch it. If you are going to use airport parking, book ahead. For more information see our brief guide to airport parking. Check that your passport is valid, and that you meet the visa requirements of your destination. Book any immunisations that you may need. If you have any special medical, dietary or mobility needs that are relevant to the process of flying, check in advance that your airline can accommodate these, and seek advice. Pregnant women are not usually permitted to fly after the 35th or 36th week, and may need a doctor's certificate of good health to fly after the 28th week. Lastly, take out travel insurance, to cover the risks of cancellation, lost luggage, and - most important of all - huge medical expenses if you are injured or ill while away. For more information, see our brief guide to travel insurance. The Internet provides an unprecedented tool for checking prices and finding the best deal in all these fields. But you have to do all the work! |
| Booking connecting flights |
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Allow plenty of time to cross an airport. If you don't know the airport, you can just about guarantee that your next flight will depart from the furthest possible gate. In addition, the chances are that your incoming flight will be late. An hour and a half should be a safe margin to make a transfer, as a rule of thumb - but allow more time if you also have to go through immigration, or collect and transfer baggage.
Note that if a flight runs late, it is not the responsibility of the airline to get you onto your connecting flight - unless the two flights are booked on the same ticket. |
| Packing |
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For advice about baggage, and a checklist for what to pack, see our brief guide.
If checking cases into the hold, make sure they are easy to distinguish from all the other similar-looking cases, by attaching colourful tags or ribbons. Otherwise, at your destination airport, someone else may walk off with your case by mistake. Label your luggage, so that it can be identified as yours. On your outbound journey, however, it is a wise precaution not to put your home address anywhere prominent, thus advertising your empty home: instead, put your destination address on visible labels. You may be planning to take large and unusual items of baggage with you, such as musical instruments or bulky sports equipment (skis, golf clubs, bicycle, surfboard). These qualify as 'special items' of baggage and require special treatment. Contact the airline well in advance to see what its policy is. |
| What to wear for the flight |
| Casual loose-fitting clothes are best. It is hard to predict quite what the temperature will be in the airport and aeroplane, so wear a number of layers - T-shirt, shirt, light sweater, jacket - which you can add or subtract accordingly. A soft woollen jumper can usefully double up as a pillow. Wear comfortable, flat-soled shoes. |
| Don't forget |
The three essentials:
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| At the airport |
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Most international flights require two-hours' check-in time. This allows the airline to shepherd all the passengers - including the inevitable latecomers - onto the flight in good time. Prompt arrival at check-in can mean you get the best seats, when seats are not pre-booked. But this will also mean that you will have almost two hours to fill. Most large airports cater for this tedious aspect of flying by kitting out the departure area (after passport control, customs and the security checks) with shopping malls, cafés and eateries. But don't depend on it. In many airports the departure area is a desert. Bring reading material.
Flights 'close' between 30 and 60 minutes before departure: if you arrive after closing time, you may find that your seat has been sold to another passenger who has been waiting on 'standby'. When going through security, be patient and calm. The process can be frustrating and invasive, but remember that it is for your own safety. On no account attempt to make any flippant jokes about bombs or terrorists. This sounds obvious, but some people do, and end up in jail. Keep your hand baggage with you at all times. If you leave it unattended, you are liable to cause a major security alert. Check the customs restrictions of your destination before buying alcohol and cigarettes. Be aware that your departure gate (where you actually board the aircraft) may be some distance from the departure area - it may even be a rail-shuttle away. Do not leave it to the last minute (or the 'final call') to discover this. |
| On board |
| Pay attention to the emergency instructions, as explained by the cabin crew before take-off. Staying comfortable and mentally fresh on a plane is not easy, especially on long-haul flights. The best advice is to eat moderately and - to avoid dehydration in the dry air of the cabin - to drink plenty of water and only a modest quantity of alcohol (if any at all). Make sure that you move your body from time to time, to maintain circulation. You can do this while seated, by exercising your hand and fingers, circulating your ankles and toes, rotating your neck, stretching, and so forth. Avoid sitting with your legs crossed. Get up from time to time to stretch your legs. At worst, long periods of physical inactivity in cramped conditions, and dehydration, can cause blood clots and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT): this statistically rare condition may emerge in the days following a flight, and can be fatal. Remember that smoking is almost universally banned on international airlines. If the cabin pressure causes discomfort to your ears (typically when the plane is climbing after take-off, or descending to land), try swallowing, sucking on a sweet, chewing gum, or yawning. You can also try 'equalising' (like a diver), by pinching your nose closed with your fingers, closing your mouth, and gently building pressure in your ears by pushing breath out of your lungs. |
| Arrival |
| Unless you are travelling with hand baggage only, there is no hurry to get off the plane. Most travellers, however, seem eager to leap up as soon as the plane stops, only to stand awkwardly beneath the overhead baggage compartments clutching their luggage for long minutes, before shuffling off to join the queues at immigration. Relax; stay seated. You will only be able to leave the airport after your luggage has made its leisurely way to the baggage carousels. |
| Jet lag |
| If you have had a long flight across several time zones, it is highly likely that your pattern of sleep and wakefulness will have become disrupted, and will be completely out of kilter with local time. With jet lag, you feel tried and out-of-sorts because your body thinks it should be night time when it is still broad daylight. Other symptoms of this disorientation may include an upset stomach, headaches and nausea. The best advice is to try to adapt to local patterns of sleep and wakefulness without delay. Change your watch to your destination's local time on the flight, or as soon as you arrive. If you arrive in the early morning, having missed most of a night's sleep, try to stay awake until the evening (or, at most, take just a short nap for a hour or so); and don't sleep in too late the following day. With luck, within a day or two, your body will have adapted to the new time zone. |
| Comments, copyright and linking |
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