Onboard ailment: Stress, fear of flying, air rage, being generally cantankerous Why it happens: Flying can be stressful; from hauling the family's luggage to the airport and queueing endlessly, to enduring inflight turbulence, there are many things that can test our nerves and patience. Plus, some people find sitting in the same space for 10 hours or more to be quite draining, and the fear factor - whether you admit it or not - can also come into play. How to avoid it: Plan properly and get to the airport in oodles of time; with current security-related delays being as they are, there's no such thing as getting to the airport too early. Onboard, we strongly recommend avoiding alcohol - you might think it has a calming effect but it's more likely to do the opposite and, as we've already seen, dehydrate your body
If you're the kind of person who fidgets and worries, ensure your mind is occupied one way or another: take a good book in case the inflight movie is Bratz, make sure you have enough to keep you busy for the whole flight (one copy of Grazia won't occupy you much further than Berlin, for example) and avoid forms of so-called entertainment that are actually stressful. Like Sudoko.
