At Medical Tourism Journeys, our Medical Tourism Journey Manager® advise all your options. One thing we take seriously is your safety and comfort while flying to and from your medical tourism destination. We know first hand what can and does happen when a person flies often and flies long distances.

Mercury Healthcare International CEO, Dr Maria Todd flies about 300,000 air miles each year to attend international conferences as the featured keynote speaker on medical tourism business and destination development topics, medical tourism safety and quality management, and to present workshops and provide consultation to our clients of the firm.

In the past 3 years, all this flying and time at high altitudes has taken its toll on her health. She has suffered three episodes of deep venous thrombosis since 2010 and two life threatening episodes of pulmonary embolism (where her clots traveled from her legs to her lungs). In one case, she was hospitalized in Spain for nine days because of the condition.  In another, she was hospitalized upon her return home in Denver for five days.  As a result, all her travel is arranged in "fly flat" seats for all flights in excess of 3 hours, by doctors' orders. Otherwise, she simply doesn't travel.  She also now requires expensive medication for life (at a cost of about $480 per month, in the US).  

This is why we are so sensitive about how our clients at Medical Tourism Journeys are booked for air travel to faraway destinations. Besides health and safety, we also want our clients to be as comfortable as possible during their travel. For this reason, our travel agency partner offers our employees, consultants and guests exclusive discounts of up to 60% on international business class air travel fares. With the discount, the difference between flying coach and business class on international trips is more affordable for our consulting clients and our medical tourism clients.

Here are some expert tips you should know about before planning a long distance medical tourism journey by air.

First, and foremost, fly flat seats are not new. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, Pan Am’s Boeing 314 Clipper “Flying Boats” had actual beds, as did British Airways (BA) predecessor, BOAC, which also operated 314s. Fully horizontal beds re-appeared in first class international seats in 1996. In 2000, British Airways launched Club World Business Class, which was updated again in 2006.  These seats may be considered fully horizontal, but according to Maria, there are now many more options in the sky.  Her most recent Club World Business Class flight from Denver to London and on to Bangalore and back left her in pain with sciatica and shooting pains in her buttocks and down her leg following the course of the huge sciatic nerve that runs from the low back to the big toe.  She was so uncomfortable after the landing at Heathrow in London on the way home, she found it necessary to break her journey and find a hotel and pain relief to be able to continue.  Why?  "The seats were so low, they were like the little squatty sand chairs you see at the beach, and the surface of the fly flat bed was hard enough to bounce a quarter off it. Anyone with a leg, back or hip or shoulder or wrist injury or recovering from orthopedic, neurological, abdominal surgery or currently pregnant would be better off on another airline."

British Airways is now preparing to redesign and reconfigure its business class product, but the change won't likely occur before 2019 with the introduction of its new 787-10 Dreamliner Airbus A350. Too little, too late. 

Lie flat vs Angle Flat

Angle flat seats cause many people discomfort because they slide down. Gravity pools the blood in one's legs causing swelling at the ankles and then the swelling works its way up the leg until you feel like someone inflated the tissue under your skin to the point where your clothes feel constricted. When we do your travel planning, your Medical Tourism Journey Manager ® checks to determine in advance which flights plan to fly which aircraft. If you are doing this for yourself without the assistance of a Journey Manager® or travel agent, you can check the flights you are interested in on SeatGuru.com. That's actually as close to reality as you can get. The problem is, sometimes there are mechanical or weather issues that cause the airlines to make a quick substitution of an aircraft that doesn't have the same configuration as planned. 

Many international route aircraft have seats that are adjustable. They allow the passenger to choose any incremental position from fully upright to angle or full horizontal flat bed surface. Some offer heat and massage. Others, like Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand have a flip down model. Flight attendants help you prepare your "bed" for sleeping and sometimes offer mattress pads, comforters, and pillows for use in flight. Qatar Airways and a few other airlines, also offer soft, comfortable pajamas to change into before retiring during the flight.  We also offer our clients "Flyjamas" that they can wear with all modesty during long flights to and from their medical tourism journey destination. They are similar to the medical scrub pants and shirts you see doctors and nurses wearing, but have our logo on the pocket of the shirt. Our clients love these and treat them as souvenirs of their medical tourism journey experience with us.

Aisle Access

Many of the airlines configure their business class cabin in such a way that you must disturb your fellow passenger to get up to stretch your legs. This is critical. Our medical advisers encourage us to remind our clients to get up each hour for a walkabout, and to drink water to mitigate the risk of DVT and pulmonary embolism. That's difficult to do if you have to jump over the passenger in the next seat or worse, wake them up from a nap.  As a result, we seek aircraft configurations for our long haul passengers that offer all aisle access seating (1-2-1). The next best thing is a 2-4-2 staggered configuration so that you won't have to step over your seat mate to get up.  This 2-4-2 configuration is available on Emirates A380 aircraft.