How to Be Comfortable on a Long Airplane Trip

A long domestic or international flight can often sour what should be a pleasant holiday or business venture. These guidelines can help your necessary travel time be as comfortable and painless as possible — for you, and for your fellow travelers.

Steps

Reserve a good seat. Even within the same class and fare, some seats are far superior to others. Consider an aisle or exit row seat for leg room, or a window if you want to sleep. Try to avoid seats near the toilets/lavatories, as other passengers will be accessing these regularly. It is common on long-haul flights for there to be queues, and people walking to or from the toilets may bump or knock your seat. Also keep in mind that the noise and light that escapes when the door is opened may be disturbing, particularly when trying to sleep.

Bring something to entertain yourself. Usually, movies don’t start for some time, and the built-in music selection can be quite poor, so bring an iPod, iPad, Nintendo DS, or CD player. You could also bring a new book or portable game.

Don’t look at the time during the flight. You can’t do anything about it and the flight will feel much longer if you keep looking at the time. Don’t check your watch regularly and avoid looking at the in-flight map showing the current position of the plane.

If possible, go with an airline that offers AVOD (Audio Video on Demand), which is a TV screen in front of your seat that lets you choose what you want to watch, play or listen to.

Bring your own headphones. The headphones available on the plane (whether for purchase or for free) are usually of poor quality. Noise-cancelling headphones and in-ear headphones are great if you have them, and can help block out a big improvement.

Minimize your carry-on luggage. One backpack is fine for the plane, and it is easier to find a place in the overhead bins or under the seat for a small backpack than for a larger roller bag.

Bring a toothbrush, and anything else that isn’t a liquid or a gel – which you need to help freshen up before meeting your loved ones at the end of your long flight. They, and your neighbours in-flight, will be glad you did!

Consider bringing your own food on board if you care about taste or health. On some airlines, plane food is quite poor.

As probably many people out there, we at ArrivedOK are waiting for the premiere of Up in the Air -- a movie about “an emotionally disconnected air traveler’s pursuit of 1 million frequent flier miles”, as someone put it.

Release date: 25 February 2010 (Russia).

There’s another funny trailer here at YouTube, where the characters are sitting at an airport lounge, tossing their frequent flyer cards and asking intimate questions about each other’s air miles balance. Very romantic :)

Ryan Bingham/George Clooney: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living…

AUSTIN, Texas, November 30 /PRNewswire/ –

- www.arrivedOK.mobi Offers Monetization to Travel Social Networks, Provides Air Companies With New Ancillary Revenue Service and Customer Loyalty Tool.

ArrivedOK (http://www.arrivedok.mobi/hello), the personal flight arrival tracker finishes the phase of public beta and goes commercial now. ArrivedOK tracks air travelers’ cell phones in a mobile network when it is turned on after landing and instantly sends those tailored ‘Arrived OK’ messages to the designated recipients via SMS, email, and social media.

Logo: http://www.arrivedok.mobi/img/logo_arrivedok_full_01.png

The automated flight plan systems do not provide accurate reporting about flight arrivals all the time, which was demonstrated on November 19, 2009 when the glitch in US air traffic control network caused flight delays across the nation. Unlike other tracking services that use centralized flight status data, ArrivedOK tracks one’s actual appearance in the destination airport using individual mobile phone status.

“Even as a paid service, ArrivedOK SMS alerts allow the subscribers bypassing the heavy international roaming charges.” – says Andrey Deriabin, Director Business Development at arrivedOK.mobi Inc. “However, we’d like to make it completely free for the end users. So we are working on B2B partnerships that would allow subsidizing the mobile traffic generated by our subscribers. During the public beta phase we received very promising responses from air companies, which look for new opportunities in a time of economic hardship. While discount airlines primarily see ArrivedOK as a source of ancillary revenue, “majors” also consider it as customer loyalty tool, willing to subsidize the service to their frequent flyers.”

ArrivedOK also provides monetization opportunity to travel websites and startups. “There are a lot of travel-related social networking projects seeking monetization.” – says Andrey Deriabin. “ArrivedOK perfectly matches their audience. We’re currently doing test integration with selected sites, and will make ArrivedOK API publicly available until the end of the year via http://partners.arrivedok.mobi”

ArrivedOK has been selected as a Webby Awards 2009 Official Honoree in two categories: Best Use of GPS or Location Technology and Experimental & Innovation. The service is currently available worldwide except for the subscribers of the US and Chinese mobile networks.

    Contact: Andrey Deriabin
    arrivedOK.mobi Inc.
    Tel: +73833630139
    Cell: +79139859722
    Email: andrey.deriabin @ arrivedok.mobi
    Web http://arrivedok.mobi
    Mobile http://m.arrivedok.mobi

Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of arrivedOK.mobi Inc.

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Tel : +44 (0)20 7490 8111
Fax : +44 (0)20 7490 1255
E-mail : info@prnewswire.co.uk

Do you know what those abbreviations mean? I didn’t until I went to a conference in LA last month. I enjoyed it, in part because it was sunny and warm and I got my share of summer that I didn’t have this summer. I mean there was summer but it wasn’t summery, it was rainy.

Anyway, global warming aside, I wanted to make these abbreviations clear to all of you who don’t know but are curious:

ARAC = well, this one I actually don’t know, but ancillary revenue is the AR here. It was the name of the conference which was organized by AI or Airline Information (group of people) who did a GREAT JOB. And are doing a great job. It was actually the best thing that I brought back home — the relationship with the guys from AI – Michael, Roger and Chris. And then there was also lovely Gill whose accent I admired probably the most.

Yes, the conference had two parts, one of which was dedicated to FFP or frequent flyer programs which is also called “loyalty”. A lot of attention was paid to keeping people as well as making money from all of them. As to making money the most publicity undoubtedly went to… RyanAir. Because anyone talking about LCC or low cost carriers would say: “Well, but not like RyanAir — did you hear they charge you for going to the toilet?” Thus everyone remotely thinking of business thought: “Hey these guys are really in the know of how to make MONEY not just preserve the image.”

In any case, the biggest success and the savor of me not carrying a lot of junk paper was the invention of our business cards by Andrey Deryabin whom we can only applaud. Really. Check those cuties out:

Aren’t they GREAT? What else do you need to say about ArrivedOK? It says it all: memorable, cute, innovative, created by those who actually THINK.

Because, as my favorite quote goes:

“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

– Bernard Shaw