Sometimes life is so much better than you can hope for. Most of the flights I have taken since coming back from Iraq are full and even beyond full—overbooked with gate agents offering a free flight to anyone who can wait another day to go home.
When I booked my flights to Paris and back, I followed my usual practice of getting an aisle seat as far back in the plane as I possibly can. Both ways I was on a Delta/Air France flight. They sold the ticket as Air France, but it was a Delta plane—a Boeing 757 that was built when the Beatles were still a group. This long, narrow plane has 34 rows of coach seating with three seats on either side of the center aisle and ten rows of first-class seating with two seats either side of the center—not quite 200 passengers if the plane is full.
On the way over we had just 57 passengers. On the way back the gate agent said there were 70 empty seats. From Row 37 back to Row 44, most of us had a row of seats to ourselves. I have been eating and napping for the last four hours. Travel to Europe does not get any better than this!
