If you or one of your attendees have a medical emergency in flight, let’s hope you’re on a Virgin Atlantic plane. According to this article, the airline has implemented some pretty cool technology to link flights to medical help on the ground, allowing non-medical people to help the afflicted. From the article:

Tempus uses the satellite technology that operates Virgin Atlantic’s onboard telephone system to transmit medical information such as pulse rate and blood pressure readings as well as video images to medical experts at the MedAire Centre in Phoenix, Arizona. The ground-based doctors can then diagnose the problem and advise the crew on the next course of action, enabling crew to use their medical training to assist the passenger.

Simone at Something Extra very nicely is sharing her lessons from the road, and they’re good ones. Here’s a couple of them:

from Mexico: IF a hot meal is being served, avoid the back of the plane
from Hawaii and Ecuador: Be willing to try something new; yet travel with bottled water and Imodium AD!

Click here to find out how she learned to check baggage tags the hard way, and other ideas.

I’ve learned to roll my clothes instead of folding them to keep the wrinkles down, and to expect airport delays (and be delighted when all goes as scheduled and thank the staff profusely. They’re so used to getting yelled at that it confuses them, but I think they like it). Also, to make sure that if I bring food on the plane, it doesn’t have a really strong odor that could gross out my neighbors and/or make them stare longingly at my chow with puppy-dog eyes (kids are particularly good at this). I’ve also learned to hoard all uneaten snacks, because you never know when you’re going to end up at an airport, starving, at 2 a.m., waiting for a connection. My mom swears by noise-cancelling headphones and eyeshades, but I haven’t tried that yet. I feel I have to stay fully alert and aware of my surroundings at all times when in flight, because without me concentrating so hard on keeping the thing in the air, who knows what might happen!

What have you learned as you earned your frequent flier miles?