Which airline is the best bet to reassure fearful flyers?

Q My wife has become increasingly anxious about flying, and the latest upsurge in Middle East conflict isn’t helping. Can you recommend the best airline for us to use – first to Spain and also to visit family in Australia late next year?

Chris N

A The UK is blessed with extraordinarily high levels of air safety, with no fatal accident involving a British passenger jet since the 1980s. Ryanair, the Irish airline that operates many UK flights, is the safest in the world in terms of the number of passengers flown without a fatal crash. In second place is easyJet – Britain’s biggest budget airline. Internationally, so far the 2020s comprise the safest-ever decade for airline passengers. All of this is easy to say but it is difficult to provide reassurance for people who are fearful of flying; easyJet estimates that to be one in four of the population.

Helpfully, easyJet runs a “Fearless Flying” course around the UK, including over the next two months at Luton, Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast and Bristol. The full £219 includes an online course, a “meet-the-team” Zoom call and an “experience flight” from the relevant airport. This is an out-and-back flight that returns to the same airport. The organisers claim more than a 95 per cent success rate in persuading course participants to fly on that departure, with most subsequently returning to flying without great anxiety. (You can join your wife on the trial flight for an additional £110.)

All the likely airlines for a flight to Spain – British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Tui and Vueling – have outstanding safety records, so choose whichever most closely meets your needs in terms of timing and fares.

Longer haul, the Gulf-based airlines are currently making a detour between the UK and Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai over Egyptian and Saudi territory to stay well clear of the intensifying conflict in the Middle East. But if you really wish to avoid the whole region, the best way is to fly on one of the Chinese or Indian airlines via their hubs in Asia; they operate to and from the UK in Russian airspace, which means they take much more northerly routes. Alternatively, for destinations in eastern Australia (Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne) you could fly via North America – though this is much slower, more onerous and usually more expensive.

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Q I read online that bedbugs had been found in four Las Vegas hotels. I am going there in the new year. How worried should I be, and how can I spot them?

Paula M

A During six months from February to August this year, the Southern Nevada Health District found bedbugs in at least one room in four separate properties in Las Vegas. To put that into context, around 40 million people visit Las Vegas each year, and the city has around 150,000 hotel beds. The odds are steeply in your favour that you will not fall victim to these troublesome bloodsuckers. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: “Bedbugs, a problem worldwide, are resurging.”

Cimex lectularius, as the bedbug is known scientifically, is a small insect about the size of an apple pip. They are rarely happier than when feasting on human blood. They cause itchy bites that can be painful. Unlike mosquitoes, which also enjoy dining out on “blood meals” from humans, bedbugs do not transmit disease. With the rare exception of a severe allergic reaction, there is no reason to worry if you are bitten. The NHS says: “Bites usually clear up on their own in a week or so.”

The organisation warns bedbugs can hide on bed frames, mattresses, clothing, furniture, behind pictures and under loose wallpaper. They can be transported inadvertently in travellers’ luggage. How best to spot them? On arrival at your accommodation, inspect the room for any sign of the nasty creatures. Check in the fold of mattresses and sheets. Look for what the Health District calls “rusty-coloured blood spots due to the blood-filled faecal material that they excrete on the mattress or nearby furniture”. I accept that is not a great way to begin your holiday.

I have stayed in a few unusual places over the years but have never, to my knowledge, encountered bedbugs. Mosquitoes have always been a problem in terms of night bites – and they are much more lethal than bedbugs because of the diseases they transmit.

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Q I have one friend in Atlanta and another in Chicago. I would like to visit them both in May 2025. Can you recommend the best way to combine both at a reasonable cost, flying from London, and seeing some sights along the way between them? I prefer not to drive but I know sometimes it’s unavoidable in the US.

Michelle R

A You are well placed to enjoy some of the best of the southern and midwestern US – entirely by reliable and affordable buses. For flights, I recommend an open-jaw ticket out to Atlanta and back from Chicago. British Airways can offer both on non-stop flights. The fare at the moment, flying out on 3 May for two weeks, is a remarkably low £664. I would grab it at that price.

Atlanta is rewarding to explore. The civil rights heritage includes the home of Martin Luther King. Then take a Greyhound or FlixBus from Atlanta to Nashville, a trip of under five hours for a fare of $36 (£28).

Nashville, the home of country music is a hoot, with the world’s only full-size replica of the Parthenon providing an interesting diversion. My highlight is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Three more Greyhound hours and $30 takes you to Louisville, Kentucky. This small city is well worth a couple of days due to the sheer breadth of interest: the legacy of boxer Muhammad Ali; the home of the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, and some fascinating Old Louisville architecture, comprising Victorian mansions. There are three signature hotels: the Seelbach Hilton, with a miraculous Rathskeller decorated with pottery; The Brown, a century-old landmark on the National Register of Historic Places; and the amazing 21C Museum Hotel, which has a 30-foot sculpture of Michelangelo’s David right outside (as you do) and a free museum inside.

Indianapolis is a couple of hours north and a good place to pause before the final four hours by bus or Amtrak train to Chicago – where you could spend a month and only scratch the surface of this diverse and intriguing city.

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