I recently contributed to The Weekend Australia, Travel + Luxury. An article about long haul travel, written by Elle Halliwell.
If you have a The Australian subscription you can read the full article here. If not, please see some of the article below;
There are many things to love about living in Australia. The hours of air travel required to visit distant destinations, however, is not one of them. This collective isolation has endowed us with a masterful ability to withstand some of the world’s most extreme flight routes, including gruelling ultra-long-haul flights of 16 hours or longer. If you want to know which seats to avoid in economy, the best airport transit lounges or the skincare.
In 2026, we’ll find out just how far we can push the limits of our in-flight resilience when Qantas launches Project Sunrise, the non-stop flights connecting Australia’s east coast with London and New York City. Meanwhile, the airline has been testing our tolerance with slightly shorter services, including July 12’s inaugural non-stop flight from Perth to Paris, a 14,264km journey taking about 17 hours.
As the countdown to the take-off of the world’s first 20-hour flight begins, we’ve gathered insights from some of Australia’s frequent flyers on how to survive hours in the air.
Michael Crossland, International speaker and author
Michael Crossland’s intensive pre and post-flight recovery regimen rivals that of an elite athlete. The international speaker travels long haul at least once a month, sometimes visiting the US for less than a day. “Last month, I flew out of Sydney on Wednesday morning, spoke Thursday morning in Las Vegas and flew home Thursday night,” he says.
Preparation begins with choosing an optimal flight time. “The Qantas night flight out of LAX into Sydney is a beauty, along with the evening Perth to London flight,” he says. “I also always change my clock as soon as I get on board and try to get my body and mind into the destination’s time zone as quickly as possible.”
Health is a top priority for the author and cancer survivor, whose carry-on essentials include sanitiser, face masks, vitamin C supplements, a comfortable eye mask and earplugs. “Not foam ones,” he adds, “but swimming ear plugs as they’re better at blocking out noise.”
For the ultimate post-flight sleep recovery and hydration, the former professional baseball player swears by a post-flight routine involving vitamin-infused IV drips, cold plunges and infrared saunas.
But the long-haul hack that never fails to draw looks of envy from fellow passengers costs him less than $10 a flight. “I buy a cheap, full-sized pillow from a discount department store – they’re so much more comfortable than the ones provided, even in business class and just leave it on the plane,” he says.
