Traveling with chin?

I'm going to be going up to college again in the end of August (I leave the 20th) and this will be the first time i'm going up since I got 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