Conquer Your Fear Of Flying - The Flight Attendant's Advce and Mine

 A flight attendant assures you that your plane is unlikely to crash under turbulence. The major problem is your own unnecessary worry, or reaction. 

She advises to listen to music - or call the flight attendant for comforting words. Since the attendants are supposed to remain seaated during turbulence, the best time to speak to them is before the turbulence. Choose a time when you get a chance to speak to them and they are not busy.

Listening to calming music, she said. I just like listening to music I like. Country music with a story to tell, keeps my attention as I listen for the punchline.\\

Window Seats

I used to sit in window seats to get the view. Later I preferred the window seat to take photos.

Advantages Of Aisle Seats

 Then I got given aisle seats a few times and found out the advantages. An aisle seat makes it easier to speak to an attendant. Easier for the attendant to speak to you. Easier for you to pop out to the toilet without disturbing others. Easier to get out of your seat - especially if you lift the arm rest by pressing the release button hidden under the arm.. 

Now I sit in aisle seats. No looking down at the ground from a height. 

Instead, the distraction of people. Instead,l ooking forwards. Such a long, huge plane. A view of unphased crew. \

To take a photo, just ask the person in the window seat to take a photo. Or the person in the middle seat, who will either on your further instruction, or their own initiative, pass your phone to the person in teh window seat.

checking your photos for camera shake and good angles will keep your mind off the turbulence.

Useful Website

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13848807/flight-attendant-viral-video-advice-fears.html

Singapore Airlines - World's Best Airline - The Winner Again

 Picture from the window seat on a Singapore Airlines plane. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

If you are not in a window seat, and you want a photo, simply ask the person in that seat to take a photo. They might be asleep during the flight, but you can ask them during or soon after take off, and before landing, and any time you are both sitting upright.

Singapore AIrlines wrote to tell me

Thank You from the World's Best Airline

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has been named World's Best Airline in the 2023 Skytrax World Airline Awards, the fifth time we have won this prestigious accolade. We also took the top spot for Best First Class Airline, Best First Class Comfort Amenities, and Best Airline in Asia. In addition to this, we were also named Best Airline (Overall) in DestinAsian (Asia) Readers' Choice Awards 2023, and awarded Best Overall Cellar by Business Traveller’s Cellars in the Sky Awards in February this year! We are committed to innovating and investing in industry-leading products and services, as well as offering you a world-class travel experience. Thank you for your support and for making us a part of your travels. We look forward to welcoming you on our flights again soon.

Would you swap seats? Aisle, middle, window seat? Together or separate?

Window seat view at night. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Booking Seats

If you want to sit together on a plane, choose seats as early as you can.

I used to like window seats. I liked to see the view, and take photos. But I was claustrophobic. One day I was forced to take an aisle seat. I discovered that the long view up the aisle was more to my liking and left me calmer.

Changing Seats

 At the check-in you are often asked if you want to move if you are sitting separately. If you are not asked, that is the time to ask.

Once on the plane, you might ask the airline staff. 

Third choice would be to ask passengers.

Advantages of the Window Seat

Seeing the ground as you leave and arrive. Getting good photos. You can lean towards the window to sleep.

Advantages of the middle seat

Two chances of chatting to somebody interesting or meeting the man or woman of your dreams.

Advantages of the Aisle Seat

Advantages of the aisle.are that if you are claustrophobic you can focus on the long view down the aisle. One arm is free. You only have albows and bodies and legs of another passenger on one side. 

Useful Website

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11797491/Debate-rages-airplane-etiquette-Virgin-passenger-refuses-swap-seats-Jay-Kloss.html#comments

Safest Seats On A Plane?

 View from a Singapore Airlines plane window. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

You can sit by the window for a view and photos. But you can ask the window seat passenger to take a photo for you. 

You can sit in an aisle seat to get into your seat fast on boarding, and out fast on departure. And out to the toilet easily during the flight.  And no disturbance from anybody else wanting to get out to the toilet. 

But which is the safest seat? Most experts, as well as passengers commenting, say sit at the back. They argue,  humorously or seriously, planes don't back into mountains. 

The rich sit in the front. Or take private planes and small planes which crash more. They also take off in bad weather. They are risk takers.

Serious and Sad Answers

Most planes from high have no survivors. You would lose consciousness before you had time to brace. The plane which splits in two gives you no better chance at the back. At the back you would be doused in gasoline.

Humorous Answers

Sit on the black box. Sit on the wing. Sit in the airport lounge. Sit at home. You could avoid travel and take a boat, so long as no planes fly into your boat. The worst seat is next to a two year old. If a plane crashes the safest place is not in it Nor underneath it.

Useful Websites

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11718755/Seat-seat-scientists-reveal-risk-dying-airplane-crashes.html#comments

Secrets Of A Successful flight on Singapore Airlines, the price, the movies, the seat, the armrest, the toilet seat

 

Airline lounge toilets had heated seats.

Mushroom soup. Pasta. Buffet. Chocolate mini muffins.

Best Prices

Hunt for the best prices for flights. On Singapore Airlines we found that midweek flights and daytime flights were cheaper than night flights and weekends. 

Choose Seats

Pick your seat online as early as you can. Right now flights are full. 

Aisle Seat

I like aisle seats. I can jump out quickly.

I like an aisle seat. I used to like window seats in order to see the view when taking off and coming into land. But I was a nervous flyer and that made me feel worse. 

I discovered that I felt less claustrophobic in the aisle seat. Then I could see all the way down the plane. 

Second Chance to Choose A Seat

If you cannot get the seat you want, don't worry. You may get a second chance during check-in. For the first time ever, in May 2022, this did not work. They were full.

Last Chance - Or Swap Seats

After boarding, ask politely if somebody else wants to change seats. I am glad I did not fret about not having an aisle seat. As soon as the person with that aisle seat got on, he asked me, "Would you mind changing seats?" 

"Delighted to," I replied. I asked, "Why do you want a window seat?"

He said, "Because I work on the engineering of planes. I like to watch the wing flaps move."

 I was delighted to swap seats.

I changed to aisle seats by accident when I could not get a window seat. 

I could get out of my seat easily and quickly, with space alongside.

Window Seat Photos

I asked him to take a photo of the wings for me with my mobile phone.

Armrest Lever

Another trick in the aisle seat is to lift the armrest so you can get out more easily. There is usually a button or lever under the armrest.

Watch Great Movies

I watched four movies.

1 A film starring Meryl Streep as an author on the QE2 with two long lost friends and her nervous nephew.

2 Everything is Illuminated. Set in Ukraine. Fictional story of earnest young American searching for the village where his late grandfather came from. It has moments of black humour, (like Borat's film on Kazakhstan).

3 Emma. Jane Austen's humour survives the centuries. Bright humour and romance. Great acting. 

4 A film on Changi prison. The statistics were shocking. 

Useful Websites

https://www.singaporeair.com/

https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/travel-info/requests/meals/

https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/ppsclub-krisflyer/earn-miles/earn-on-the-ground/