If there was a time to drum out the cliche “you get what you pay for”, it was after the first Qantas Perth to London 17hr 20 minute non-stop flight on Saturday, March 24. The difference between a business suite or premium economy and economy on Qantas’ nonstop 787 Dreamliner route could be the difference between arriving ready to hit the sightseeing and sinking straight into a hotel room bed. Yet if like most of us, your funds only stretch to the back of the bus, there are ways you can better your chances of being bright-eyed when you stroll through Heathrow Airport’s arrivals gate (or if you’re coming the other way to Perth). Choose your seat early Checking in online is the only way to go for this flight. A window seat will give you the side of the plane to rest your head against when it’s lights out but there are other tricks too. Exit rows are obviously the best for extra leg room (which I found an issue on this flight) and if you get a seat at either end of the middle trio of chairs you may get lucky like me and find the seat in the centre vacant – I’m told it’s considered one of the least desirable seats on the plane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MD2R4OGIz0 Start with a movie While the who’s who in business class will enjoy being wined and dined from take-off, in economy class, it might take a few hours (in my case, until 10 pm Perth time) to get your first taste of food that’s not rice biscuits. I found the first few hours of the flight the longest but, on Saturday’s inaugural flight, those who got stuck into the movies straight away said it was the best way to see off the first couple of hours and a handy distraction from the early turbulence we encountered due to a cyclone (But the rest of flight was silky as). READ: Marathon economy flight quicker than expected.  Limit the grog Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce may compare the first direct Perth to Britain route to Christmas Day. If that were the case, Mr Joyce may have made himself the Christmas Grinch when he suggested to AirlineRatings.com that the best way to manage the flight was to stay off the booze. But, there may be some truth in it. I gave it a try myself, limiting myself to a mere one gin and tonic at the start of the flight. When you’re tired, jet-lagged and running of a diet of adrenalin and bread rolls, the last thing you want is a mini-hangover mid-air. Being hydrated surely has to help.

Read There’s nothing like a good book to make you feel like you’re on holiday. My favourite long-haul trick is to read the first 50 pages of a fresh book in the week before the flight and finish the rest on the plane. The hours melt away when you’re deep into a good read and getting a head start pre-flight makes it much easier to pick up when you’re a little more tired than usual. Read: Qantas to look at Perth to Paris next  Follow the crew’s wacky schedule The beauty of the Dreamliner is its anti-jetlag measures. Mood lighting, temperature changes and even the food are all rigged towards getting you in the correct routine on landing. So, it’s not much use if you resort to sleeping when the food’s out and watching movies when the lights are dimmed. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy eating bacon butties in the middle of the night or sleeping when you’re told to but trying to sync yourself with the crew will make it a whole lot easier when the lights are switched on at the end of the flight. Walk Look at the time right now. Now, cast your mind back to 17 hours ago. What have you done since then? Been for a run? Walked around the office? Been to the gym? You can’t spend 17 hours on your backside if not only for your health’s sake, for your sanity’s sake too. Take a stroll down to the pointy end of the plane, do a couple of laps and try and get your steps up. It helped me and I didn’t have even a little bit of swelling when we landed. Talk Tiredness brings out the worst in us all and there’s nothing like a long-haul flight to make that happen. A short, friendly chat with your fellow passengers is not only a nice thing to do, it can make you a little more understanding when they’re snoring or they’re struggling to control their children later in the flight. But don’t be “that” person and try not to bother someone with their headphones on who clearly wants their own space.

Avoid the flight map They say a watched kettle never boils and a watched route tracker won’t budge any quicker either. You know what you’re signing up to when you book a 17-hour flight to why torture yourself by watching every minute drain by? I tried to check it only a handful of times and every time I was pleasantly surprised to see how far we’d travelled. Learn the seat facilities early on This sounds painfully obvious but in an aircraft as fancy as this one, there may be something you’ve missed. The last thing you want to do is struggle to find a comfortable position for 16 hours, only to find the footrest in the final push. Take a couple of minutes to watch Qantas’ video about your seat and see if there’s a way to make it a little more tolerable for yourself. Consider noise-cancelling headphones A fellow passenger on Saturday’s inaugural flight told me he was dreading telling his wife about the money he’d spent on noise-cancelling headphones at the airport. Yet, later in the flight, he told me how he didn’t know how he’d survived long-haul flights without them. If you’re a light sleeper, a pair will make that frustrating drone of the aircraft dissolve away. But, be warned, not even the best pair will block out the noise of a crying baby or noisy group of passengers. Otherwise, a good pair of earplugs (a step up from the foam ones Qantas provides) will come in handy.