What are your long haul flights in economy tips

MiraculousM

List them!

Im taking a long flight (well longer than 6 hours) on American for the first time in 6 years (i usually fly BA but dont care for their product much anymore). Last time i flew american the seats were small, and there was no personal entertainment system. Im expecting the worse.

Tell me your tips and you how you survive cattle class.

(PS do american provide blankets still?)

blindman

MiraculousM wrote: »

List them!

Im taking a long flight (well longer than 6 hours) on American for the first time in 6 years (i usually fly BA but dont care for their product much anymore). Last time i flew american the seats were small, and there was no personal entertainment system. Im expecting the worse.

Tell me your tips and you how you survive cattle class.

(PS do american provide blankets still?)

Think we need to know:

Day time flight?
Are you 7ft tall (or wide :cool:)
Solo traveller?

MiraculousM

Day time out and red eye back.
5'1 and small
solo

Voyager2002

Personally:
Equipment: I have a decent pair of noise-cancelling headphones and an MP3 player that connects to my computer (now just an iPhone), and some way to keep everything charged. Well before the journey I download a selection of plays from Radio 3 and some audio books and/or dramas from Audible. So after take-off I am immersed in my own world.

Gloomendoom

Get your legs amputated.

DUKE

I always take my own blanket.

Ask for emergency exit seats when you check in. Or put your stuff on your seat & hover around towards the back of the plane, watch the middle row very closely. I've ended up with a 4 for the 2 of us this way. Although some people end up with a 4 all to themselves, so they can sleep for the whole trip. Act quickly though because quite a few people will have the same idea.

Drink, listen to music, read, wander up & down.

I usually always take night flights as people tend to be quieter, & I'm so exhausted that I get to sleep a bit.

stevie11

Agree with Voyager re headphones. What is the route you are travelling, do you know the aircraft type. Most transatlantic AA flights I have flown in the last 5 years have had IFE.

My seat preference if I don't get MCE on AA is an aisle seat then you can get up without disturbing fellow passangers and slightly stretch legs into the aisle.

The seats are not much bigger/smaller than other economy seats. Yes they do supply blankets.

If you are thirsty don't wait for the attendants to come round get up and ask for a drink.

[Deleted User]

Travel with small children, so that you are constantly getting up out of your seat, taking them to the toilet, or walking up and down the plane to keep them amused.

It ensures you get plenty of exercise, no chance of DVT and you can also pack very light, as the chances of you reading a book or listening to music for more than 17 seconds are absolutely zero.

Nick_C

Check to see if American still allows you to request seats in advance free of charge (online). If they do, check out https://www.seatguru.com for the least worst seats.

I hope you are not on a 777 as they have crammed more seats in, and are now 10 abreast.

Although BA have gone downhill, they still don't have ultra high density seating on most of their TA flights

And if you are a member of BAEC, enter your number against your booking for a few Avios.

benjus

I really struggle to sleep on planes, even in a good airline's business class, so I usually try to get some sleeping pills for long haul. My work provides a private GP service for employees, who were happy to prescribe some - don't know if the same is true for NHS GPs.

One thing I always do is set my watch/phone time to the time at my destination, then try to imagine that I'm in that time zone already, every time I look at the time I think about what I'd normally be doing at that time, and I try to sleep at the right time as much as possible. Helps reduce the shock of the time difference at arrival and I find it helps with the jet lag.

gettingtheresometime

Flew BA to & from Australia in economy &, if you pardon the pun, it flew by.

For the night flight Id invest in an eye mask, buy some ear plugs (99p from screwfix) & I bought some of those sleep aid tablets from Tesco.