Originally Posted by
Gardyloo
Okay, a couple of things..
First re uncomfortable, not being able to sleep etc...
Solution - business class. Problems solved.
In a tube for hours... Not uncommon, and not necessarily just claustrophobia. Yes, it's a big tube, but there are also unfamiliar sensations - bumps and dips for no good reason, noise (a constant background roar) and of course acceleration/deceleration.
Solution(s) - business class on a big widebody, window seat, noise-canceling headphones. Sit in the last row of business class, which will usually put you close to or right over the wing - the smoothest place on the plane. Also look at daytime flights eastbound, which run from most of the big east coast cities plus Chicago to London. They're quick, you can look out the window, plenty on the seatback monitor or out the window. Book a hotel at Heathrow and you sleep in a bed rather than an airplane seat. For me (and many others) they also really help reduce jetlag.
Iceland - maybe, but the only planes flying to Iceland are narrow-bodies without decent lie-flat business class. With many nervous flyers, take-offs and landings are the most stressful, so why double them, in addition to really being in a narrow tube?
Standby option - Queen Mary II - lie flat beds, great food, a surprisingly cheap waterfront hotel that moves. No jetlag. However, six days instead of six hours.
Very interesting post, thanks! I would enjoy a daylight eastbound flight too, on something like a 747, 787 or A 380. But how do you search for flights on a specific plane type? Never seen that, even on ITC, and trying to put Flight Aware data together with future flights seems to be no guarantee of success.
I've seen 747/777, and 787 at ORD, and I know A380's have started landing there. But (for example) I've never seen anything but 777's at IAD, who flies widebodies TATL?