Airline Travel Tips

Step 12: Altitude changes

These are my favorite style of earplugs for flying.  I wear them on takeoff until the plane reaches its cruising altitude, and again during the descent and landing.  Once I did not take them with me and the plane descended rather rapidly.  I had a swimmer's ear for almost three days until my ear "popped."  These allow the pressures to change gradually and I have never needed to wait for an ear to "pop."  It is easy to know when to put the earplugs back into my ears before landing.  About 30 minutes before landing you can hear a sudden change in the sound of the engines.

Comments

[kretzlord]

A trick I used to use while flying on MD-88's was chewing gum for takeoff and landing. The jaw motion continually equalizes the pressure. it doesn't always work great, but if you forget your plugs, its a good alternate