Sleeping on Planes

Back in the day, when I traveled almost every week, usually flying off to some place in Latin America or Europe, I remember the feeling on a Sunday night as I headed off to the airport. I hated leaving home before the weekend had ended, and I hated not having the comfort of being able to go into the office like a regular person, but what I never disliked or dreaded was the flights themselves. To begin with, given my seniority, I always flew first or business class and always found the seats relatively comfortable. Whether doing the overnight to Europe or the long haul south to Rio or BA, my pattern was much the same. I would kick back and go to sleep as soon as the plane reached 10,000 feet, eschewing the evening meal service and trying to get as full a night’s sleep as the flight schedule would permit. I will not go so far as to suggest that even the best of airline seats make a perfect bed, but they never bothered me enough to keep me from sleeping. This was before I started using a CPAP machine, which happened when I turned 40. Nothing held me back from a good night’s sleep, which was important in those days since I usually had a full day’s business ahead of me when I landed. Not sleeping was an impact on productivity and I was all about productivity in those days.

My experience with less than perfect sleep started when I had a place in Park City in the early 1990s. The altitude of my first condo there was 7,500 feet and it was just enough to make it difficult to sleep soundly. When I moved down to the big house in Snyderville Basin, it was only 7,000 feet, but still wasn’t great for sleeping. It was my pal Deb who first suggested a CPAP machine. It seemed that her father had been prescribed one, but refused to use it. It was available for resale since they are expensive devices, so I bought it and started using it. I had the normal adjustment period of having something strapped to my face while trying to sleep, but I adjusted pretty easily and have never looked back. I have slept with a CPAP machine ever since. I have a travel CPAP that is smaller and more convenient to use in hotels. It even has the ability to be used on a plane, though I rarely use it for that. Instead, I opt for the old-fashioned but somewhat workable oral device that pushes the lower jaw out enough to open the airway. It is less comfortable, but helps. Unfortunately, what was an easy thing for me in my youth, haas become a much harder task for me as I have aged. I no longer find it easy at all to sleep on a plane. On a normal 6 or 7 hour trans-Atlantic flight, I am lucky if I get 1-2 hours of sleep. It’s even worse on the Pacific or Latin American flights since they are longer and my inability to sleep leaves me tossing and turning for far more hours than I like. I think it now has less to do with breathing sufficiently and more about seat comfort. Lie-flat seats are simply not all they are cracked up to be, especially the ones with the narrowing foot wells. My large feet simply do not fit easily in there and the hardness of the surface does a number on my hips since I sleep on my side. In some ways, my best option is the old fashioned first class seats that lean back and do not lie flat (as rare as those are now a days). I can breathe better at a slightly uplifted angle. The seat has more cushioning and less trouble for my hips. And, I generally find its more comfortable and also mechanically works better since lie-flat seats are forever stalling-out unless you get off and adjust them from the aisle.

This upcoming travel to Europe is going to really test the metal of my current plane sleeping ability since it will go over two nights. The first will be a redeye from San Diego to JFK on Delta, and the second will be a redeye the next night from Newark to Heathrow. Both are relatively short overnight flights, which I suppose makes it all a bit easier, but then again, I doubt I will get much sleep either night. Luckily, we have a day room at Newark which might allow me to get a few hours of sleep in a real bed in between the two nights. Getting that day room was a real challenge. It turns out hotels do not like the day room program. You would think that they have lots of excess capacity during the day, but their routine is so set in stone that it doesn’t come easy. I finally got a good deal for a day use room by going through dayuse.com, which seems to specialize in this and provides the service at a decent price point. We’ll see how it all works out as we Uber into Newark from JFK and try to spend the day resting up for our next travel leg through the currently dreaded FAA vortex of Newark Airport.

I just ran across an article online about sleeping on planes. I had to read it given my upcoming journey. I was expecting some great insights, but the focus seemed to be on the old standards of temperature, sound and light. I’m not sure I can do much to adjust the plane’s thermometer, so since I’ve never found it cold enough for good sleep (65-68 degrees is recommended). That leaves light and sound. I have plenty of sleep masks, so light should not be a problem. But I did get the reminder that a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones might be useful. I’ve had these in the past and I do feel that AirPods get uncomfortable after a while in your ear, so I decided to buy the latest greatest pair of over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones I could find that would deliver on time. Apple has some and I could have gone to the Apple Store today, but at $550, I thought I could do better. I then found a pair from Bose that would deliver today for $350 and I hit the bid. What I particularly liked was that they are Bluetooth for up to 50 hours of play and they can be plugged in as well. I am less concerned about insufficient charge and more interested in having something that can be used for both my iPad/iPhone on a Bluetooth basis and the airline in-flight entertainment system by hard wire plug-in. We’ll see if that all works as planned once Amazon delivers this afternoon.

I have no idea if the headphones will make the difference in sleeping on the plane, but if ever I needed some help in that department, it is now.