Finnair Gives Exercise Tips for Long Flights

Finnair has started giving exercise instructions on its leisure flights and long-distance routes lasting more than five hours. As of the beginning of February, 'exercise videos' based on animation techniques will be played during the final part of the journey, as part of the Finnair TV Show presented during flights.

There are several different videos, each of them lasting a couple of minutes at a time. They provide the passengers with different exercise instructions in order to increase their well being and comfort on long flights, from knee lifting and ankle rotating to toe exercises.

Finnair's Aviation Medical Director, Dr. Pekka J. Oksanen, says that passengers should move their feet and take walks along aircraft aisleways every hour during long flights. Immobility of any length of time may cause circulatory problems, particularly if the passenger is pregnant, or suffers from varicose veins or blood coagulation disorders.

Doctor Oksanen also recommends that passengers take care of their fluid balance. A sufficient amount to compensate for dehydration is 50-100 ml of water or juice an hour. However, dehydration should not be counteracted by drinking alcohol, because it only increases the loss of body fluids. On long flights one should also preferably wear loose-fitting, and not too tight clothes. Dr. Oksanen is also an advocate of the use of flight stockings. 'They are definitely good, and I also use them myself on long journeys. A six-hour flight is long enough to notice how they help and make you feel better,' he says.

Exercise instructions as such on aircraft are nothing new. They were provided on Finnair planes as early as the beginning of the 1970s, after the airline started its flights to New York.