Some sanity in family air travel

After years of reporting on air travel woes, I am please to report that some sanity is emerging. I have written elsewhere about the wonders of Virgin America. It is currently the gold standard in family air travel. But not far behind is JetBlue. JetBlue is cheap and flies to a ton of destinations in the US. It doesn't have WiFi nor Virgin's magical food ordering system but it has TV screens at each set with live TV channels that can be used on take off and landing. It makes you wonder why these are OK for electronics but a Kindle will cause planes to crash. Actually, it doesn't. The ban is plain stupid. 

Finally, a quick endorsement for their customer service. I made an error and booked a pm rather than am flight for the family. It look as if those tickets would be lost but within a day, those penalities were reversed and everything was fine. Very nice.

Turbulent activities

You know I have always wondered how I might react when flying with kids and the plane hit serious turbulence. Well today on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Sydney I got a chance to find out.

It appears we hit an unexpected storm. Why it was unexpected I do not know. But we were buffeted during the morning tea service. The plane appeared to be blasted and went into what I swear was a downward dive. It was more than enough to send everyone back to seats except people on the bathroom who were told (and I am not making this up) to stay put and hang on. I guess the theory was if they had to go they might as well have convenience.

Anyhow the kids started to look concerned and I wondered what to do to take their minds off it all. Then I remembered a scene from Madagascar 2 last week. When the plane was crashing in that movie the lemurs put their hand in the air and said "it is more fun if you do it like this." So I did the same and the kids joined in.

Suffice it to say there were more dips to come and each one the kids treated like a roller coaster. It was both surreal and amusing at the same time. It also got us some strange looks from the other passengers. I guess though it was a distraction to them.

Now as I am writing this you have probably guessed we survived the experience although I did wonder what it would be like to update my Facebook status while all this was happening. Then again turning on my phone during a crisis is probably not a good idea. The flight staff seemed pretty freaked out when we saw them again so I guess they were pretty occupied during it all.

Alas the kids were quite sick by the end of it and had their paper bags at the ready during the landing and afterwards. There is only so much you can do in this situation but pretending it is a roller coaster will at least take the edge off.

Travel accessories

In Slate, Sara Mosle talks about the stuff you could use to ease the pain of travelling with kids. In my mind, much of it seemed like overkill (and there was no mention of the critical DVD players, DSs or iPods) but this was sensible advice:

Over time, I've learned a few lessons. First, although infants can ride on a parent's lap up to age 2, you should spring for the extra seat if you can possibly afford it. That's especially true if you're traveling alone and can't trade off holding the baby. Otherwise, expect to emerge from the cabin at trip's end looking as if you were mauled by a feral cat. I know of nothing that prevents this except perhaps large, leather animal-trainer mittens. Second, think of the plane as a potential deserted island. During that 12-hour flight with my daughter, the plane had no food and eventually ran out of water; you need enough provisions to last a day. This includes a bucket-load of baby wipes (whether or not your baby is in diapers) and a change of clothes for your kid. Both help (trust me) with vomiting at 30,000 feet.

For more, you can read the (now hidden) chapter from Parentonomics on "Travelling."