Preparing for a long flight

I fly to South Africa next Saturday. Well, actually Saturday and Sunday because I leave Washington on Saturday evening, change planes in Amsterdam Sunday morning, and arrive in Capetown Sunday evening, 23 hours later. A flight of this duration can bring on deep vein thrombosis (DVT), dehydration, red eyes, jet lag, and increased susceptibility to scores of airborne diseases. So I'm girding my loins for the long haul.

Why can't it be like it used to be? Back in the 60s, it was fun and luxurious and cheap. Was it really? In the 60s you could fly from New York to San Francisco in 6 hours for about $326. Your seat probably boasted a 34" pitch. That's the distance from your seat to the one in front of you.

Today, New York to San Francisco, Economy, will set you back about $550. The flight still takes about 6 hours and your seat will have a 31" to 33" pitch. You could fly business class and get a seat with 37" pitch, but that'll cost about $3150.

Wait a minute! Corrected for inflation, that $326 in 1965 would be $2230 today. Not much less than business class today and your seat would have been considerably smaller. And that $550 we pay today would have been $80 back then. So airline prices haven't really increased over the past forty years or so. It's just that, in the 60s all seats were like the ones in the front of the plane today. So how did the average person swing it? They didn't. They went Greyhound.

Are the seats really that much smaller or are we just larger?

Let's not talk about that. Preparing for this flight, I have purchased compression socks, an inflatable neck pillow, and a Nada chair (a device that moves the stress on your back to your knees.) I'm going to hydrate like hell ahead of time, and I've loaded my iPod with sleepy-time music. Forget the melatonin pills. I have them but they don't work on me.  I will blog occasionally while away and let you know whether any of this stuff worked.