Traveling with chin?

I'm going to be going up to college again in the end of August and this will be the first time i'm going up and I have Eli. My school is an 8-9hr drive from my house. Originally I was going to fly up with him and keep him in a cat carrier but according to JetBlue they only allow cats and small dogs to fly (which is weird because so many people have cat allergies, who has a chin allergy?) anyway, if I were to put him in a carrier (most likely a cat carrier) would he be okay for the 8 hours? He would have water of course and I'd stick some of his hay in there too