Good tips! Make sure to have your items ready BEFORE getting to the front of the screening line at the airport. Nothing is more frustrating than being behind the person who needs to remove their 20lbs of metal before passing through the detector.

-Also make sure your bag is actually small enough to be a carry on. Pack your non-essentials in a larger bag and check it. The airlines certainly lose some items but most likely your stuff will show up. Even if it doesn’t most airlines will send it to your destination, good thing you packed the essentials in your small bag!

-Wear closed toe shoes and know where the exits are on your plane. It is highly unlikely anything will happen on your trip but trying to get out of a burning airplane in your flip flops won’t be easy. Also it is impossible to see inside a smoke filled airplane, count the number of seatbacks to the nearest exit. You won’t likely need this information but wearing closed toe shoes isn’t that big of an inconvenience.

-If you are going to be late call whoever is picking you up. Sometimes when you are dealing with de-icing the pilots will let you use your cell phone to call family about the delay (always ask the FA first). Tell you family to watch your flight progress on a site like flightaware.com, that site uses the actual air traffic control radar to track the flight. If they go to United.com for example they won’t get an accurate arrival time, the arrival time on that site is based on when the door closes plus the expected time for the flight. It doesn’t take into account delays like deicing.