I took my son to visit my mom and relatives in San Francisco when he was 5 months old.
I had a bottle of very hot milk ready before we board the plane. When the plane took off, the milk was ready to drink and I let my son drink the milk to release the pressure in his ear. We did the same when we came back from SF.
We reserved a bassinet from Singapore airlines and my son slept most of the time in the bassinet. We stayed in my sister's house while we were in San Francisco. But then, we have spent 3 days to visit Palm Springs. While we were in Palm Springs, we stayed at Westin hotel. Again, we asked for a baby cot for my son. He was fine sleeping in the baby cot.