We didn’t actually get to fly a United 757, but we did get to see one, so that was cool
I hear from family and friends (even strangers) all the time how they no longer like flying. It is much more stressful, the respect is gone, and the golden age has long expired. For sure, air travel has changed. It has become cheaper, much safer, and yes, more annoying. It can be a challenge for even a pro to get through an economy experience with a big smile. However, if you are one who flies with some (or a lot of) anxiety, the current flying experience can be terrifying. I don’t mean the flying at 35,000 feet in the air, but the smaller worries that can add up to one big worrisome mess.
Most people who meet me typically sees someone with an outgoing type A personality with little anxiety with flying. Sure, I have had quite a bit of experience, but when I was younger, it was very difficult for me — and sometimes, it still is. I would sweat, I would dry-heave, and I would fear the process of travel, but still loved flying.
Maui time!
Driving to Hana in a Jeep was SUPER cool, and lots of anxiety!
So sweet!
Maui is great
I have improved my process for dealing with my anxiety, and flying has become much easier for me. I have been wanting to write a story about flying with anxiety for a while, but it seemed challenging for me to be effective with it, so it has been sitting in the ’œDavid Story Idea Bin’ (man, some of the scraps in there…) Recently, my fianc Brittany (we recently got engaged, yay us!) and I were set to fly from Seattle (SEA) to Maui (OGG) via San Fran (SFO) on United Airlines. We have been together for a while and done quite a few flying adventures. I know she has that sort of travel anxiety that I used to have, but loves to actually fly (I know, great catch right?).
I thought this trip might be a good opportunity to look at how flying with anxiety can be challenging and how one can make it better. Over and over again, I kept going back to how being able to pay your way out of anxiety can be a great option for some people! What better way to do that than to fly first class? Would the extra extra cost be worth the reduction of anxiety? If so, where is that tipping point? Keep reading to see what we both found.
Building an empire includes top hats and private 737s
You might have noticed that after some down period (around two years), things have been picking back up again at AirlineReporter in 2019 (well, other than the last week or so with our servers). We are publishing more stories and being more active on social media. We have a renewed motivation and vision that goes beyond what you have seen on our pages for the last decade or so.
I am proud to announce that on top of still bringing you the awesome airline content you have come to expect, our brand will be expanding into some new frontiers. Over the years I have found that those who have an interest in airplanes also share similar passions with other transport related things. Our research has also found a number of other categories that you, our readers, want covered. Instead of putting everything on AirlineReporter, we have decided to create what I am calling the “Reporter Empire” where we have different sites that will cover the different niche topics. I want to take a sneak peak of what you can expect in coming in the next year or so. Of course I would love to get your feedback!
Clearly we spent a ton of time talking about Finnair’s new flagship Airbus A350s … but we never flew one ourselves. Well we’re about to fix that! On Sunday March 31st into Monday April 1st we’ll be flying Finnair’s inaugural service from Los Angeles LAX to Helsinki on the A350. It’s the airline’s first US route to get full-time A350 service, which means a huge passenger experience upgrade in all cabins. As usual, we’ll be live tweeting along the way @AirlineReporter.
Also we’re genuinely interested in your feedback on the video trip report format. Would you like to see more videos enter the mix? And subscribe to our YouTube channel to get a first look at clips from our trips!
Not literally, but honestly I think I would rather have deal with a literal dumpster fire. Over the last two weeks, you might have noticed the site down, no new content, things going wonky, and our emails not working. If you are reading this, things are getting better — hopefully. I am not 100% confident yet — I have been fooled before.
We were trying to move the site to a new server and I would say things didn’t go well. We have worked hours, and hours, and hours, and hours to try to make it work. To no avail. I used to love this technology stuff, but now not as much of a fan. I like writing and editing stuff about airplanes a lot more and hopefully I can get back to that soon.
You might have seen a previous post saying if you left a comment, I would mail you some free AirlineReporter.com stickers. The bad news is that post is toast, but the good news is I still have your email addresses. Once my email address is stable, I will reach out. If you didn’t leave a comment previous, but would still like some free stickers — leave a comment and I will make it happen.
This has been bad timing since we have picked up our game this year, providing more content per week than we have the last two years. Have no worries, we have some great content in the hopper and will be getting it out soon. Thank you all for your patience!
You might remember that we got to fly United’s inaugural Boeing 787-10 stretch Dreamliner service from San Francisco to Newark a few weeks ago. There was all the new plane buzz you’d expect. But one feature that deserved its own special mention was the plane’s inflight entertainment system. It was redesigned from the ground up to include tons of new features, from a better moving maps for the #AvGeeks (including us!) to live news updates, a movie+map split-screen option, a favorites list, and a trippy “relax mode.” Plus, the folks at UA went out of their way to accommodate passengers with impaired vision and/or hearing.
Read on for our report with all the details about United’s new screens in the sky!
