WE’VE all flown coach. Most of us will continue to fly coach. Until such time as we escape the crucible of economy class, these gadgets and extras are going to substantially upgrade your flight.
01: Hang up your feet comfortably
Relaxed feet are the key to a calm and ailment-free flight. Sadly, taking away your footrest seems to be MO for certain airlines.
Put it right back with this adjustable foot hammock that will have them comfortably suspended – taking considerable pressure off the blood vessels in your thigh and reducing the risk of potentially fatal complications like deep vein thrombosis.
02: Get in high spirits. Alcohol is a solution.
When all else fails, turn to the bottle of choice to soothe (or dull) the senses and introduce some zen to your immediate surroundings. Better yet if you can somehow slip enough of the stuff to any noise-generating entity in your immediate vicinity. Remember to decrease dosage for infants and children.
DISCLAIMER: Do note some of these actions may be criminal in nature; but hey, you’ll be buying some quiet time for the whole cabin.
03: Don the hideous Ostrich Pillow
You’ve seen this one. It’s made the rounds. It looks ridiculous. No one in their right mind wants to be caught in one.
But if you’ve got an 18-hour nonstop and are anywhere close to the bassinet seats, it’s time to pull out the ugliest pillow known to man.
It shuts out light, muffles sounds, cushions the head, and induces mirth.
It’s aptly named the OstrichPillow. We surmise this alludes to the whole “I can’t see you, so you can’t see me” mentality that’ll save you from the withering, judgmental stares of other passengers. They may even put you on their Instastory. Rude.
But let them. When you disembark – fresh-faced and fully rested against their haggard visages and ravaged eardrums – is when you get the last laugh.
04: Get atop this specially-engineered seat cushion
Okay, so you’ve had to book RyanAir last-minute. Instead of pitying your own sorry ass, you could cosset it instead with this very specialised seat cushion – the spiritual successor to the brand’s best selling butt-pads.
What’s a butt-pad, you say? We’d no clue till now either. It’s apparently designed to take the pressure off your tailbone, and the sting out of those damn airline seats, which are, by the way, intentionally stripped of padding to keep the plane light (saving them fuel money).
With your derriere intact, you can now do the necessary calculus to figure out if the airline overcharged you for daring to bring a small hand carry aboard.
05: Protect your legroom with the controversial Knee Defender
You know those buffoons in front that drop their seats into your lap the moment the seat belt sign turn off? You can’t (legally) garrotte them with your airline earphones, so do the next best thing. Stick this contraption into the chair; as close as an ‘up yours’ as you’re going to get. The rigid clip severely limits how far the blighter can tilt back in his seat.
More often than not, said dolt is going to chalk it up to a mechanical fault and leave it at that. Now you can actually breathe and watch telly instead of a balding pate. Just make sure to not bring it on flights to and from the States – it’s banned on all flights after multiple fights broke out on separate airlines. We wonder why.
06: Scratch that engine noise and chatter with the right headphones
It’s no secret that the freebie earphones/buds are good for slightly muffling squalling babes and chatterboxes – and not much else. You don’t actually want every male actor to sound like gruff ol’ Sean Connery.
No, invest instead in a pair of adaptive or active noise cancelling (ANC) headphones or earbuds – we liked the Sennheiser PXC 500. These don’t just blot out most of the noise by clogging up your ear . They actually have microphones on the outside that pick up sounds, then do their level best to ‘cancel’ the offensive noise out via an ‘opposing’ sound wave.
Now all we need is this in ray gun form.
07: Beat the short-haul blues with this tablet holder
Who’d have guessed? It’s 2019 and we’ve got foldable phones on the market, but some short-haul flights still don’t come with an onboard entertainment system. Remedy that with this nifty sling that holds your tablet in place for you.
IMAGES: Respective brands.
