Jet Smarter: The Air Traveler's Rx

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Summary: Indispensable for the modern air traveler!
Review: An indispensable guide for the modern air traveler and a critically important book, Fairechild brings her vast professional and personal experience to bear in discussing everything from cabin air quality and the use of poisonous pesticides in occupied aircraft cabins, to the dangers of deep vein thrombosis and radiation. A multitude of practical measures are offered which the air traveler can adopt to maximize health, safety, and comfort. Eminently readable and hard to put down, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who travels by air or is concerned for family members or business associates, as well as by those who are interested in facilitating technical and policy change in the aircraft and airline industries. I also found Ms. Fairechild's continually updated website ... to be of great value.

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Summary: Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
Review: Cabin pressurization was one of the greatest advances in air travel. Aircraft could fly passengers higher-above the rough weather. Airsickness is rare today. But the higher altitudes, and resulting faster speeds and longer ranges, introduced a number of not so obvious challenges. This book covers the things that affect passengers today.

Jet Smarter discusses jet lag, airliner air quality, toxic sprays, radiation, electromagnetic fields, altitude, pressurization, dehydration, G-forces, noise and much more. Then the book tells you what to do about them. The latest edition of this revised volume includes several specific air travel articles from Fairechild's business travel column on the ABC News website.

Diana Fairechild is an airline health and safety advocate who has flown over 10 million air miles as a flight attendant.

As a pilot (SEL and gliders, hang gliders and paragliders), skydiver (1,200 jumps, D-454), author and publisher, I fly quite often. I want to know the risks of flight so that I may balance them with the rewards. Diana Fairechild has revealed the risks and her book tells me how to minimize them. [e-mail].

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Summary: Jet Smarter - Diana Fairechild
Review: I am a 68 year old retired Inter-continental airline forensic researcher - 30 years on the job, 5 continents, passenger on 64 airlines, 45 countries, some years 150 flights, mainly transatlantic, transpacific, plus many NorthSouth & SN. I became more tired and exhausted as the years went on and attended a world class sleep clinic in Toronto presenting with severe symptomology. I mentioned the frequent flying, but the doctor merely made a note of it for file, and that was that. I was subsequently diagnosed as having a severe depression and placed, by my doctor, in a chemical fog for 10 years.

4 years ago a flight attendant "wised-me-up" and lent me her copy of Diana's book.

Eureka!

From a professional air accident forensic researcher point of view, this book has been researched as if for a doctorate diploma. Diana's writing, with extensive referenced materials and insight, has to be taken seriously by aircrew (many have their own copies), the Frequent Flyer who is gaining milage (and serious illness - usually misdiagnosed) as well as the occasional traveller. This book will be appropriately recognized in time, but for some people it may be too late; - medical misdiagnosis, chemical fog, electro-convulsive therapy(?), and a diminished life enjoyment.

I am grateful to this lady author, who learned her material through the school of hard knocks - a toxic aircraft work environment. Her knowledge is exquisitely FIRST-HAND! (unfortunately)!!

Heartily and strongly recommended to all civilian and military flyers and passengers, and those that love them. I also recommend these people; flyers, passengers, and loved ones provide a copy to their doctors. The medical profession would be well advised to to take instruction from this exceptional tome.

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Summary: A Bit Let Down
Review: I had high hopes for this book but feel somewhat disappointed. I saved it for my trip and in the end it could not keep my attention. It needed more of the human touch. Maybe it was me but I needed a little more humor and interest. Advice was a bit obvious.

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Summary: 2 1/2* Get the 2nd Edition Only!
Review: I'd like to thank Donald Mitchell (and Ms. Fairechild, who spoke with him) for pointing out that a much shorter, new version was published in 2003. Mitchell, who is an excellent reviewer (and connoisseur of P.G. Wodehouse) was correct in his opinions of the earlier book (now in paperback).

The earlier version is poorly written, padded, inaccurate, and filled with such well-known advice as to drink plenty of water before you fly to prevent dehydration. In addition, there are several unsubstantiated scientific claims (she provides absolutely no references or footnotes), as well as the author's personal (New Age-feeling) insights. Obviously, a revision and update were in order, kudos to the author for providing one.

The author has written several other books available at Amazon.com, their favorable reviews are a welcome sight.

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Summary: This book can save your health, maybe even your life!
Review: Jet Smarter is the Encyclopedia Britannica of air travel! Read it before you board an airplane - then pack it in your carry-on. This book can save your health, maybe even your life! There are more dangers in flying than you ever dreamed of. It's all in Jet Smarter. The book is hard-hitting, in depth, comprehensive, full of solutions, entertaining and often witty. It's a behind-the-scenes look from author Diana Fairechild, a savvy former flight attendant and now aviation health expert. Diana's advice on how to deal with flying is practical and useful. Her suggestions really work. It's obvious that she's been there, done that, and fixed that herself. Thanks to Jet Smarter, I can fly without being sick during and after the flight. I can think and work - or play - after a flying instead of going straight to bed to recuperate. Now, instead of dreading the trip, I actually look forward to it.

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Summary: The definitive guide to air travel health and safety!!!
Review: No airline passenger should be without JET SMARTER, Diana Fairechild's definitive guide to air travel health. Drawing on her 21 years experience as an airline insider, Diana gives us a rare, no-holds-barred look at the dangers of jet travel and, luckily for us, offers hundreds of sensible ways to cope with or even avoid their impact on our health. Wonderfully readable, Diana's new book startles us with how hazardous airline practices are, comforts us with her healthy, personally-tested approach to surviving the travel experience, and entertains us frequently with her sometimes gentle, sometimes gritty, but always grand sense of humor.

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Summary: An Invaluable Travel Guide
Review: This easy-to-carry paperback is fun to read. Fairechild has a great sense of humor that reduces anxiety by letting you be prepared. You become stronger by reading this book and being able to protect yourself from the rigors of travel.

Where else can you find such topics as these: Why people swell up on airplanes, Aggravations aloft, Eating right in flight, Tray table tactics, Don't be shy about protecting yourself?

Like a great teacher, Fairechild has been to the furthest lands and now gives us her insight to prepare us for a trip. By reading this book, you have the opportunity to prepare yourself with both expert knowledge and the happiness that one has when the trip ahead makes sense. Jet Smarter is an adventure in a book.

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Summary: Lessons from a Flight Attendant's Suffering
Review: This review has been rewritten with the benefit of extensive comments from the author.

Before reading this review, please be aware that Ms. Fairechild kindly let me know that she is bringing out a new book in October 2003 that is 150 pages in length that she feels eliminates the problems with this current book that my review addresses. Although I have not seen that book, I suggest that you consider that one instead of this one.

This book will be of most value to those who are starting careers as flight attendants or are frequent fliers who experience illness during and after traveling. Occasional fliers will find relatively little relevant information for them beyond what I have read in magazines and newspapers.

The lesson of this book is that doing lots of flying is hazardous to your health and sense of well-being. On pages 200-201 of the paperback, regular print edition, you can find a chart of symptoms which refers to what may be causing those symptoms. From there, you can check into the relevant section of the book. This is the best way to use this book.

Caution: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, read this book from front to back. It contains the same information, on the same subjects over and over again. I estimate that there are less than 100 pages of unrepeated material in the 396 pages in this book. I found it very hard to plow through all that repetition.

Ms. Fairechild was a flight attendant for many years and finally had to give up that profession due to illness caused by chemical sensitivities. During that time, she flew over 10 million miles. Her own health issues turned her into a person focused on sharing the potential dangers of flying with passengers and crew members. She is kind to share the lessons of her own problems with the rest of us.

Her explanations are pretty easy to follow. The most serious problems usually relate to lack of oxygen, dehydration, becoming infected with diseases from other passengers, chemical poisoning, and stress reactions. She provides extensive lists of counter-measures -- more than most people will probably choose to follow. But if you have an extreme problem, you may choose to pursue all of them.

You will probably be shocked to learn that pilots are often paid bonuses for using less fuel that encourage not providing as much oxygen to passengers as the planes are capable of providing. She suggests asking the flight attendants to request that the pilot make full oxygen available. I haven't flown since I read this so I don't know how well it will work to make that request.

Ms. Fairechild also points out that almost 90% of all fliers will have some negative health outcome during or after the trip. Would you tolerate that if your car had the same effect on you? Perhaps our legislators in Congress should require some changes.

Naturally, the best thing to do is to stay off airplanes.

I was troubled by sections of the book where Ms. Fairechild writes quantitatively. Her numbers sometimes didn't make any sense to me. She asserts that a Boeing 777 costs one billion dollars (more than the stock market value of most airlines), which cannot be right. She now tells me that she has checked with Boeing after reading my review, and agrees that the number is wrong. She frequently points out high profitability in the industry, while the industry has cumulatively lost money since its inception through any ending year you want to use. These statements made me less confident about her quantitative statements about health. Are there really 15 million people in the United States who have tuberculosis, as she asserts? I don't think so. It may be that a large number of people occasionally test positively for tuberculosis. The commonly used test is notoriously inaccurate in producing false positives among people who do not have the disease. Ms. Fairechild tells me that she had no one to help her check facts or edit the book, which may account for these lapses.

I would have rated the book lower because of its writing style and the errors which made me question the book's facts, but I think its overall message is one that all flight crews and frequent fliers need to understand. Let the inflight workers and frequent fliers beware!

I certainly admire and appreciate Ms. Fairechild's sincere attempts to help us all have healthier flights. She seems to be a five-star person! I hope her new book is a great success.

After you read this book, think about what else you do that is potentially harmful to your health. How can you accommodate your career and personal needs in a more healthful way?