Since Andrew Corrie left the world of investment banking, he has not flown quite as frequently in the first-class cabin on the route between New York and London as he used to. He does, however, enjoy the luxury of taking “the chairman’s flight”, the daytime journey, which is so nicknamed because supposedly only very senior executives can afford to remain for an entire day away from their telephones, computers and BlackBerries.
“And if I’m taking the chairman’s flight, then premium economy is generally good enough,” says Mr Corrie. “It’s good enough for me to doze and do my work without getting disturbed during the flight.”
When he upgrades his tickets to business or first class, it is the extra space more than anything else that he appreciates. “Forget the quality of food and service,” he says. “Unless they’re actually rude, it’s really just not having someone right on top of you that makes the difference.”
Mr Corrie left his job as an investment banker several years ago and is now one of four partners in Ochre, a lighting and home store with its own line of furniture, a large shop in Manhattan’s SoHo and operations on both sides of the Atlantic.
With a city home near the SoHo store, he tends to find flying from Newark Liberty International airport most convenient, while on the way back at the end of the week he will often come into JFK, which puts him in the right part of New York if he is heading up to his second home on Long Island.
Mr Corrie travels the New York-London route about one a month. “When I was in banking, I didn’t do the flight that much more often, but I’d tend to take the night flight,” he says. “And if you take the night flight, you need to take off after 10pm because then your body clock will allow you to go to sleep. That also gives you a chance to have supper in a more leisurely way before you get on to the airplane.”
To gain the maximum amount of sleep on the night flight, Mr Corrie advocates what he calls “striking a deal” with the in-flight attendants. “You say: ‘I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me,’” he explains. “So they literally come and wake you up at the very last minute.”
This means missing breakfast. However, Mr Corrie says he then usually manages to persuade the attendants to give him a glass of orange juice and a pot of yoghurt, even if they have closed the kitchen. “It’s quite a short flight and so that way you might get four-and-a-half hours solid sleep, which isn’t bad. You can function on that.”
While many frequent fliers have established complex systems for dealing with jet lag, Mr Corrie say he does little in the way of preparation for the change in time difference. He simply makes sure he eats lightly and adjusts his watch to the time at his destination.
He does, however, stress the value of taking some exercise as soon as possible after arriving. For Mr Corrie, that means going for a run.
“I find that makes a huge difference,” he says. “You feel you are getting out all the toxins out of your body and doing it a favour after having been sitting still for so long. Because even if the flight is on time, by the time you get to the airport, wait around and get through customs, you’re probably talking 12 hours door to door.”
