Travel Tips

Air Travel Tips

Air travel can be a big concern for inexperienced travelers, but there is lots of great information out there to calm the reassure nervous air traveler prior to take-off. Even if you are not worried about flying a little bit of planning can make for a much more comfortable trip, grabbing the cheapest flight deal will not always give you the best trip, and sometimes it won't even save you money once you factor in food and airport transfer costs!
8 Tips for Planning Air Travel

Read on to discover some of the tips of the regular air traveller.

    * The ideal flight is one that combines a great airline, spare seats, good airports en-route and the cheapest price! Not always possible but here are some things worth considering when trying to get the perfect combination.


Birdsville Airport, Queensland, Australia
Birdsville Airport, Queensland, Australia

    * Choose your airport with some care, a decent airport can create a pleasant experience on departure, a nice stopover and an efficient arrival. Oddly, there appears no real correlation between the GDP of the country involved and the quality of their airports. The often quoted worst airports include LAX, Los Angeles and Heathrow, London, UK. The most often voted best airport in the world is Singapore's Changi which although not a new terminal seems to get the mix of facilities and efficient service just right. It makes you wonder why some airports struggle to offer showers for travelers where they can offer not only a spa-like shower for S$10 but also a swimming pool, gym, free movies and designated quiet zones for sleeping!

    * Look at smaller airports as a better option to avoid the congestion of major centres. Use he "show nearby airports" option when searching for flights on sites such as kayak.com and sidestep.com. Among the major booking engines, Travelocity also has a "compare surrounding airports" option.

    * Consider the date and time of flights. Flights are typically busy Monday morning's, Friday evening's and "convenient times" which depart and arrive in daylight hours.

    * Arriving late at night in a new time zone can make it easier to adapt as you can go immediately to bed. The downside can be lack of public transport from the airport forcing you to use an expensive taxi.
    * Alternatively sleep the night at the airport, if its the right airport, and then move on in the morning.

    * Consider if and where to break your journey. Often you will notice that your ticket is going to route your through an intermediate airport where you will have to change planes anyway so consider if you would like to take advantage of this and spend a night or two.

    * Before booking a budget airline over a full-service airline, consider that a long haul, full-service airline will include all food, drinks, entertainment and often alcoholic drinks. This not only makes the time go faster, but it can save you a heap of cash on a long-flight. You can easily spend $50 a head for a couple of meals and drinks - so that $200 saving on a round trip may not be that great. Also budget airlines tend to use remote airports which can add considerably to your transfer costs, particularly in Europe.

    * Anyone who has been SCUBA diving should not fly within 24 hours of their last dive because of the increased risk of the bends due to the low pressure in the plane's cabin. Snorkeling is quite OK.