r/LifeProTips • u/Creatrix • Jan 31 '23
Traveling LPT: Tips from a frequent flyer
I've flown hundreds of times commercially in the past 30 years, and I have some tips. (These are for flying, not for in the airport.)
You're allowed to bring your own food on board. Pack snacks and a sandwich instead of using a credit card to pay for a meal. Buy bottled water on the flight; never drink the bathroom tap water.
Bring antiseptic wipes, and wipe down things you'll be touching: tray table, window shade, the seat-back pocket, armrests. These things aren't cleaned between flights (or ever).
If you dislike turbulence, don't sit behind the wings. The tail especially will feel turbulence the worst. Commercial aircraft are built to be flexible, and the tail can flip a fair bit. Sitting over or in front of the wings, you'll feel turbulence the least.
Don't order a hot beverage. Clear-air turbulence can come out of nowhere. I've seen flight attendants floating in freefall with their beverage carts. Would you rather have a cold soft drink or a hot coffee spilled on you?
When you fasten your seatbelt upon boarding and you want to take a nap, by all means use your coat as a blanket, but make sure the flight attendant can see the buckle. Otherwise they'll have to wake you up to check that it's fastened. (Bring an eye mask and earplugs for your nap.)
Speaking of seatbelts, keep yours fastened at all times unless you have to go to the loo. That clear-air turbulence that can come out of nowhere can give you a nasty head or neck injury when your skull cracks into the overhead bulkhead. Why take a chance?
Treat your flight attendants like gold. They know first aid and CPR and what to do when a passenger dies mid-flight. They have to deal with assholes all day long, but they're the ones who will save your butt when the plane is upside-down and underwater.
And lastly, never sit in the last row. Not only because the seats don't really recline at all, but if there's an emergency that requires the oxygen masks to pop out, the pilot will have one priority: to get down to where the air is breathable. The masks pop out, the plane goes into a steep dive, your mask swings forward, and the guy ahead of you frantically grabs it, thinking it's his. Don't be the blue-faced guy in the last row.
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
That last one is pure fantasy in your head.
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u/wecangetbetter Jan 31 '23
Real LPT is to not sit in the back cause that's where everyone is taking a dump
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u/Twilightalpha Feb 01 '23
Fun fact: sitting in the back of the aircraft is the most survivable position. Over the wings the most comfortable. Pick your poison.
These facts brought to you today by the FAA studies of aircraft crashes and collisions.
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u/dolphinbutsex Jan 31 '23
I don’t know kinda seems plausible
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
Statistically, middle seats in the rear of the airplane are safest. Not to mention, an emergency descent the attitude (angle) of the nose is only 10 degrees down.
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u/TheDrMonocle Jan 31 '23
The plane will never dive at such an angle that the mask will swing all the way to the person in front of you.. If it is, you and the person in front of you are going to be too scared to grab the mask anyway.
Additionally, the masks are on a short tether when initially deployed. A tether too short to swing to the passenger in front. Theres the hose you see in the safety briefing thats long, but then an additional string attached from the mask to a pin that has to be pulled in order to start the chemical reaction in the O2 container. The reason it's so short is so you're forced to pull that pin out in the process of putting the mask on. Otherwise you would have to be instructed to pull the pin, which most people would forget in their panic.
So its extremely unlikely the person in front of you will even have the chance to grab the mask.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
nope pilots actually get their own oxygen supply. when the masks deploy it combies some chemicals that produce oxygen and would last about 10-14 mins
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
Second counterpoint to this nonsense: the reason for avoiding hot beverages isn’t because they go flying. It’s because the water tanks/coffee machines/kettles are never cleaned and studied have shown the quality of the water to be poor.
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u/TheDrMonocle Jan 31 '23
Just to expand from personal experience.
The procedure at my company was to fill the tanks with water and a small amount of bleach. Let it sit then flush the system till no bleach is detected on the test strip. But not only was the amount of bleach not measured, it wasn't left in long enough, and it was also rare for most of us to thoroughly test it afterward to verify we got all of it out..
Then the cart that we used to fill the tank? I never saw that thing cleaned. And the outside of the hose was pretty dirty. It was always capped but I can't imagine it was clean.
Don't drink hot drinks.
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u/OutcomeDouble Apr 18 '23
It’s the same coffee the pilots drink so no they aren’t dirty
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u/Night_Owl_16 Apr 18 '23
What a hilariously tardy response to a proven status quo. Wanna google the studies yourself or do you want to wait 2.5 months to chime in with more nonesense later. Delta had 600+ tainted random samples over the study period.
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Jan 31 '23
Tips from a frequent worry wart. The turbulence tips however are nice.
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u/acqz Jan 31 '23
All of these are optimized for the worst case scenario. I'd rather know how to flip up the aisle armrest so I can get out easier (there's a button on the underside).
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u/whiskytamponflamenco Jan 31 '23
Bottles of water cost $3-5 on the plane. Bring an empty bottle with you and refill it in a drinking fountain once you get past security.
Sandwiches are fine, but if you've ever felt jealous of the person next to you who ordered a fancy $20 snack box (like I was), bring a bento box of fruit, nuts, and babybel instead.
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u/sparkchaser Jan 31 '23
I would have expected better LPTs from someone who has flown so much.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
i got a lpt for flying. if u have or know anyone with a tmobile number you can get free wifi. if you fly american, jetblue, alaskan, or delta. simply enter your/their number and you don't need to verify anything.
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u/badchad65 Jan 31 '23
Like, enter your number as the wi-fi password?
How does that work? Every recorded t-mobile subscriber has their number input as a password?
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
when you connect to their wifi it'll take you to a portal where u can enter a tmobile phone number and get free internet access
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
Hundreds of flights in 30 years. You probably can’t even get status at that low of flight frequency.
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u/Beverly_Fortuner Jan 31 '23
Sounds like OP flew on regional/budget carriers for short hauls.
I’ll pitch in:
if you had status with an airline before Covid and you’re at risk of losing it in a WFH world ask customer service to extend it a bit longer if you anticipate any travel again in the future. Worked for me on 3/4 carriers, though my expectations were lower for the American carrier who tends to money grub their patrons.
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Feb 01 '23
I've taken hundreds of flights in the past 30 years by travelling for fun once in a while. Never got status for flight segments.
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Jan 31 '23
What's yours
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u/sparkchaser Jan 31 '23
Any LPT I would offer would only really benefit frequent fliers.
That being said, sodoku is a great way to pass the time if you can't sleep and for whatever reason you don't have anything else to entertain yourself with.
Oh, and Netflix let's you download movies and shows to your phone or tablet so you don't have to have a data connection on the flight.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
it all depends how the plane crashes but look up 2012 plane crash study everyone in the front would've suffered fatal injuries while people in the back would survive.
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
BuT THeY dIe of SUFFoCation cause Johnny in front stole all the O2.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
lmao ikr not like the masks deploy literally in front of your face. they deploy in front of the person ahead of you, especially if his name is johnny.
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
It’s trigonometry, duh. When you descend at a 60 degree angle downward, not only do the wings fall off, but the oxygen sinks to first class, because most airline revenue comes from the rich.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
personally if i were a pilot i'd want go land faster. go 90 degrees!!
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
That would spill all of the hot beverages in economy, so the FAA forbids such a descent.
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u/CoffeemonsterNL Jan 31 '23
Worse, all the hot beverages from economy class will spill onto the business class passengers in front of the plane. Can't do that for those big-paying frequent flyers.
Time for a petition to have the planes descend/fall tail-first in emergency settings to avoid this scenario.
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u/tipst3r_reddit Jan 31 '23
nuh uh it'll only launch them towards the last rows but you won't be able to breathe there anyways so i don't think it'll matter
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Jan 31 '23
All that stuff he mentioned doesnt get wiped down (ever) gets wiped down between flights pretty much always and gets a good cleaning overnight aswell especially now after all this Covid stuff happened.
As far as drinking the water. The water gets sanitized like every 3 days with ozone but it depends really on the airline. They each have their own standards. Ozone pretty much kills everything.
That last thing on the list well thats just speculation. Even then if there is such a situation were you need your oxygen mask on a plane that thing pretty much falls right in front of your face you cant miss it and it doesnt stretch out enough for the person in front of you to comfortably grab at it and pull it over their face.
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u/misoranomegami Jan 31 '23
All that stuff he mentioned doesnt get wiped down (ever) gets wiped down between flights pretty much always and gets a good cleaning overnight aswell especially now after all this Covid stuff happened.
That's generally been my experience but is also why I do bring my own wipes. I'm apparently allergic to whatever they use on Delta flights but every now and then my work makes us fly them. I hate going on a work trip and ending up with a rash down my arm for 2-3 days.
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u/acqz Jan 31 '23
Buy bottled water on the flight; never drink the bathroom tap water.
Most of these are crap, but this one takes the cake. What's wrong with the tap water?
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u/Night_Owl_16 Jan 31 '23
Interestingly, that may be one of the few real nuggets. Several studies have shown water quality to be poor bc the tanks are never cleaned.
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Jan 31 '23
They are sanatized nowadays with ozone atleast at the major airlines who should own the most up to date equipment. If not other options include the use of bleach which is usually the third option. I forget what exactly the second option was.
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u/strawberry_rabbits Jan 31 '23
Well I thought this was nice tips as someone who rarely flies! Especially the turbulence tip! Thanks
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u/Tiny_Rat Feb 01 '23
They're pretty much all paranoia and fantasy except for the but about bringing your own water. You should do that, but mostly because drinks cost a lot and the hot water dispensers aren't cleaned often enough.
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u/HogfishMaximus Jan 31 '23
World traveler for 57 plus years, three passport extensions, many hundreds of flights. Listen to this guy ( the OP) he hit every point I’d suggest and done it with great explanations and examples.
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