What in the air is going on here?! Surviving an airline flight in coach during the modern age.
Remember flying during the "Madmen" age? Well, of course not! Most of us are too young to remember it for real, so just think about when you last binged watched "Madmen". Now, forget all about that! Flying has become a cattle call onto filthy, cramped airplanes run by airlines with very little concern about much below the bottom line. And trust me, if you haven't flown recently, passengers are below the bottom line! As actual human beings, you do have some rights as a flyer, those that have been afforded of you by the people who sit at the table in Washington and make our airline consumer laws: that would be the airlines' lobbyists. But it is important to know your rights and I recently read an article in the Boston Globe Business section which provided an excellent summary of airline passenger rights. It's linked here, Airline Beefs Lead to Circles of Frustration and don't worry, it's not long; there are not that many rights!
My own bill of rights (if I had enough money for my own lobbyist) would look something like this..
- Tell us what the heck is going on, exactly, and often.
- If you are going to nickle and dime us with fees, disclose that, exactly, and often.
- Give human beings seats that accommodate the size of real human beings, not seats that accommodate size of real chihuahuas.
- Clean the planes with actual cleansing products, exactly and often. And for flights longer than 4 hours that means someone needs to attend to the lavatories and not be pretending to straighten the magazines or manning the forward door when the lav floor is covered with excrement (yup, don't even look at the floor on an overnight flight and for heaven's sake wear shoes!!) and the toilet paper ran out over Hawaii. It's an icky job, so draw straws or take turns, but someone must do it! Ideally, I'd love to see those lavs that completely hose themselves down with hot water after each user like they have on the streets in Paris.
I could go on, but really, that's it...just treat humans with basic human decency, I'll start with that and move onto boarding methods, bag fees and lack of snacks another day, when I hire my lobbyist. You might have your own priorities, but you'll have to hire your own lobbyist! If you'd like to read a humorous tale of one of our recent flights, you can find it here.
Before I even get on the plane, I have several things I do to purchase the right flight and get ready for a flight. I blogged about those recently in part 1 Successfully Hunting Down Fights which details the things I like to do before booking a flight and part 1 1/2 : You Have To Take Steps To Fly, which describes packing and preparing to leave for the airport.
Here are the things I do to survive a coach airline flight in the modern age
1. Score a decent seat
One of the things to do before arriving to the airport is choosing the right seat online when you book the flight. This can dramatically improve your experience in the air! When booking flights, I will often check what kind of plane (the pros call this "equipment") is being used for that flight. It's usually listed on the airlines website. I use Seat Guru, to look at the flight I will be flying. This website lists all the advantages and disadvantages of the seats on that plane. It will direct you to the best area of the plane and any seats that have an issue, such as not reclining, or being near the lavs (Remember the lavs?...and my rant about cleanliness? Now picture yourself outside of it for 12 hours with a line of passengers looming over your seat during the entire flight! You DO NOT want these seats!)
Sometimes, its worth paying a little extra for comfort. One of the advantages of the new a la carte pricing system airlines are using now (extra fees for extra stuff) is that you can pay a fee for the parts of the experience you want; such as paying to upgrade to early boarding, and or extra space in your seat. This is usually cheaper than buying a business class ticket, with lots of extras bundled into the price you might not need. If you add the fee to the cost of your whole trip, you might find it's a small price to pay for some extra comfort. We will try to forget they used to give us all of that included in the airfare, and hope that takes the sting out of it!
2. Pack a flight survival kit
I have different ways of surviving short flights than surviving long flights. For me a short flight is anything under 4-5 hours. A long flight is one over 6 hours and any combination of flights that take over 6-8 hours. The big difference is that for the short flights, I don't pack anything for sleeping (earplugs, pillows, eye shades etc.)
