UPDATE: February 4, 2015

I don’t know what caused the TransAsia Airways ATR turboprop to crash earlier today — an accident caught spectacularly and horrifically on video. Early reports suggest an engine failure that was improperly handled by the crew. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that CNN didn’t read my original blog post, below. The emails I sent them on this topic also went unheeded.

In the network’s coverage of the TransAsia accident, reporters Euwan McKirdy and Vivian Kam wrote: “The plane’s pilot and two co-pilots were among those confirmed dead, authorities said.”

On and on it goes. This wouldn’t be bothering so much if I hadn’t just been complaining about it only a few days ago:

 

ORIGINAL POST: January 30, 2015

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. How many times can the media, whether it’s a print reporter or a celebrity newscaster, make the same mistake? And why aren’t the supposed experts, often right there on camera with these people, putting them straight?

What I’m talking about is the characterization of the copilot. This has been a topic du jour since earlier this week, when it was revealed that the copilot of AirAsia flight 8501 had been at the controls when the Airbus A320 was lost, and then on Thursday when the captain of a Delta flight was locked out of the cockpit, requiring the copilot to land the plane in Las Vegas.

Good god, a copilot at the controls! The media apparently has no idea this is perfectly normal.

“Is that a problem?” CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked expert Dave Soucie the other night, in a discussion of the AirAsia crash. Soucie’s half-baked answer did nothing to sway the accepted notion that a copilot is something less than a “real” pilot and thus not entitled to actually fly an airplane.

I’ve harped on this before. It’s in my book. I wrote about it numerous times in my columns at Salon, and in earlier posts on this site. That nobody is getting the message is a testament either to my own lack of reach or to stubbornness on the part of journalists. Maybe it’s both. Either way, allow me to cut and paste:

Dear Anderson, et al:

There are always at least two pilots in a jetliner cockpit — a captain and first officer — and both of these individuals are fully qualified to operate the aircraft.

The first officer is known colloquially as the copilot. But a copilot is not an apprentice. He or she shares flying duties with the captain more or less equally. The captain is officially in charge, and earns a larger paycheck to accompany that responsibility, but both individuals fly the aircraft. Copilots perform just as many takeoffs and landings as captains do, in pretty much all weather conditions, and both are part of the decision-making process.

In fact, while protocols might be slightly different carrier to carrier, it’s not unusual during emergencies or other abnormal situations for the captain to delegate hands-on flying duties to the copilot, so that the captain can concentrate on communications, troubleshooting, coordinating the checklists, etc.

Do I seem sensitive about this? That’s because I’m a copilot.

 

 

And a copilot becomes a captain not by virtue of skill or experience, but rather when his or her seniority standing allows it. And not every copilot wants to become a captain right away. Airline seniority bidding is a complicated thing, and a pilot can often have a more comfortable quality of life — salary, aircraft assignment, schedule and choice of destinations — as a senior copilot than as a junior captain. Thus, at a given airline, there are plenty of copilots who are older and more experienced than many captains.

Now, in some areas of the world, including parts of Asia, the experience disparity between captains and copilots tends to be more pronounced, and the typical new-hire copilot has considerably less experience than his counterpart would in America. The captain of AirAsia 8501 had ten times as many flight hours as the first officer, who even after working for three years at AirAsia had logged less than 2,500 hours total. In America that would be unheard of; the average new-hire at a major airline has around 6,000 hours and often many more. In the AirAsia copilot’s defense, the raw totals in one’s logbook are only part of the story and aren’t necessarily representative of skill or talent. Airline training is never easy, and any pilot, no matter his or her background, needs to be good to succeed at that level. Still, it’s not surprising for people to wonder why such a comparatively inexperienced person would have been flying the plane during violent weather. Maybe, when this is all said and done, the correct question isn’t “Why was the copilot flying the plane?,” but rather “Why are such low-time pilots in these cockpits to begin with?” That’s a different conversation altogether. And it remains to be seen if either pilot’s actions had anything to do with the accident.

It can vary country to country, but captains usually wear four stripes on their sleeves and epaulets, and copilots wear three.

On older planes there was a third cockpit station occupied by the second officer, also known as the flight engineer. (I spent four years as a flight engineer on a cargo jet in the mid-1990s.) Once upon a time planes also carried navigators, but the last known navigator in these parts was the old Howard Borden character from the original “Bob Newhart Show.”

Long-haul flights carry augmented crews that work in shifts. There might be two copilots and a captain, two captains and a copilot, or two captains and two copilots. It varies airline to airline and with the length of flight. For example, at my airline, a ten-hour flight will carry three pilots: two copilots and a captain. Each crew member will have roughly one-third of the flight free. He or she retires to a bunk room or designated crew rest seat, while the other two remain up front.

In most conversations the term “co-” implies equal. With cockpits though, the presumption is of something less. I’m not sure exactly from where this stems. The cockpit cultures of years past probably have something to do with it. In the decades prior the advent of “cockpit resource management” and all that, the cockpit hierarchy was very rigid and the captain’s authority went unchallenged. Copilots were expected to be subservient and were seldom treated as equals by imperious captains. This culture has not entirely disappeared in some parts of the world.

Reporters’ frequent use of the term “the pilot” is another part of the problem. “The pilot” did this, “the pilot” said that. Well, which pilot exactly? Use of the singular implies that the other person in the cockpit is something other than, and presumably less than, an actual pilot. I’m not sure if reporters have a style guide for these things, but this is nothing a simple “s” can’t fix: “the pilots.” Alternately, one could say “the cockpit crew.” If a differentiation in rank is needed, I’d recommend using the terms “captain” and “first officer.” Just be aware that either pilot may be at the controls during a particular incident.

 

Epaulets photo by the author.

 

For more about pilot training, lifestyle and culture, see chapter four in the new book.

 

Two Experiences Rekindle the Debate.

 

I CONTINUE to be astounded by the sheer number of people traveling around the world with babies, toddlers, and other preschool-age children. Even more astounding is how many of these kids are traveling in first or business class. These tickets cost thousands of dollars, yet it seems there’s no shortage of travelers well-heeled enough to be jetting around in the forward rows with two, three, even a half-dozen small children. How the demographics of air travel have changed, indeed.

Kids are kids. They cry, they run around, they yell, they misbehave. I understand this completely. It’s nobody’s fault, and I accept it. To a point.

 

Experience 1:

I was in Bangkok, looking for a way home. Poking around on Kayak.com, I found an excellent last-minute fare on Asiana, one-way to JFK via Seoul-Incheon, for a little over $2000. I was excited. Asiana is a five-time SkyTrax winner and onsidered by many to be a top-tier carrier. I bought my ticket, picked out my window seats, and couldn’t wait to get to the airport.

And it was downhill from there.

It starts at Bangkok’s Suvarnubhumi airport. My ticket gives me access to Thai Airways’ Royal Orchid Lounge, shared by the various Star Alliance members, of which Asiana is one. Getting access to the lounge is of course part of the whole premium class experience, and I left the hotel extra early to enjoy it.

But when I get there, I discover the lounge isn’t simply overcrowded (as so many premium class lounges tend to be these days). It’s overcrowded with kids. I cannot find a quiet place to sit. The kids are everywhere and they won’t shut up: yelling and crying and running around like it’s recess on the school playground.

The centerpiece of this chaos is an obnoxious guy in a Russian soccer shirt and his belligerent offspring. He’s something of a Vladimir Putin lookalike, sprawled sockless on a sofa with his naked feet hanging over the rail, playing a game on his phone. Around him is a spray of plastic toys deposited by his five — count ’em, five — preschool-age children, who when they aren’t tossing toys around are shrieking and throwing food at each other. They’re unbearably loud. Every so often Vlad claps his hands and scolds them in lazily indignant Russian. They ignore him and carry on.

The waitstaff, for their part, couldn’t care less. When I complain to the woman at the desk, she simply smiles and says “Oh so sorry sir.” Absolutely no effort is made to actually quiet the kids down.

And if the Putin clan isn’t annoying enough, elsewhere in the room at least three infants are crying.

I try not to let it get to me. I distract myself with the buffet, helping myself to a gin and tonic, a miniature pastry-pillow labeled “chicken roll,” and some finger sandwiches made with institutional-looking white bread. I close my eyes and imagine myself on the plane, only minutes from now, sitting back in my business class seat, surrounded by peaceful luxury.

When boarding is announced, I practically run onto the plane. I stow my things and settle in for the five-hour ride to Incheon. I’m relaxed and happy.

And then I hear the sound. It starts as a crackle. Then a whinny. Then a staccato series of gasps and yelps and piercing cries. These are the noises that only a baby makes, and that baby is in business class, three seats over from me.

And as babies are wont to do, the little darling treats the rest of us to a five-hour long, blood-curdling repertoire of periodic yelping and screaming fits. It’s the unpredictability of these fits that’s the worst part: It’s quiet, quiet, quiet; then suddenly there’s screaming. It’s quiet, quiet, quiet again; then suddenly there’s more screaming. This repeats over and over, at erratic intervals of varying duration and loudness.

But it’s all right, you see. It’s okay, because the best and most important parts of this journey is yet to come: I’ll have two hours to kill at Asiana’s lounge at the amazing Incheon airport, followed by the 13-hour flight to JFK in my state-of-the-art “Smartium” business class seat on the 777. Fine, kid, go ahead and cry. The rest of this trip will be great.

Asiana has separate lounges at ICN for first and business class. The business lounge is a sumptuous room of dark wood-tones, plush chairs, a piano and rows of bookshelves. The shelves give it an almost library aesthetic, and I like that. Libraries are quiet. I help myself to a triple espresso and set up my computer at a table near the back. There’s nobody around and I have the whole rear corner to myself.

Once again, at least for a moment, I’m relaxed and happy.

Until, hardly three minutes later, as I’m scanning through some emails, again I hear a tell-tale noise. It’s a creak-creak-creak-creak — the sound of a wheeled apparatus approaching. Somebody’s roll-aboard bag? No. It’s a baby carriage. Actually, it’s a baby carriage flanked by a mom and two toddlers, one on either side of a strapped-in infant. And this foursome of noisemakers is aimed directly at the table next to mine.

As the carriage wheels in alongside, there’s a great and sudden clattering of toys, food containers and juice cartons. Things spill to the floor as the mom yells orders in Korean at the two toddlers, who answer back in barks and squeals and a chorus of hollering.

I gather up my stuff and bolt for another table. This is only marginally helpful, however, because by now the place has filled up, and no shortage of the visitors are kids, most of whom are carrying on. A man comes out of the restroom with his two tiny sons, maybe three or four years old. The kids burst into a run, and as they pass me one of them lets out a scream so shrill that I think my coffee cup is going to crack.

And now, finally, it’s time for the Big Flight.

I made sure to choose one of the window seats with the console facing outward, toward the aisle — this creates a cubicle effect, as if you’re sitting there in your own little private jet. I’m gonna put on my Asiana slippers, drink some wine, watch some movies, and dine on gourmet food before stretching out to rest in my full-flat sleeper.

That’s the plan, anyway. Until.

Until I look up from my complimentary newspaper and there — there! — one row ahead of me, and directly diagonal to my seat, is, you guessed it, a baby. My skin goes prickly hot and and my pulse starts racing. There’s just…. it can’t…. I mean… how can…..? No!

Yes!

And I would love to tell you that this time I got lucky, and this was one of those quiet and well-behaved babies who whines for a minute and then, miracle of miracles, utters nary a peep for the rest of the flight. Don’t you love when that happens? Those are the flights that restore our faith in both air travel and humanity at large. Look at that adorable child napping peacefully like that.

But this is not one of those times. This is not one of those babies. This kid is neither napping nor quiet. He’s as loud and angry as a lawnmower.

Nothing shuts him up. And he’s of that certain age — that age between infant and toddler, when a voice begins to gain the sonic traction that allows it to really carry. At the height of his discomfort this tiniest of humans is pushing ninety decibels. It’s a wailing, electric, claxon-like sound, like a nuclear attack alert, loud enough to rattle my tableware.

The racket comes and goes, comes and goes. Reading is impossible; sleeping is out of the question. The only escape is watching movies with the volume cranked up (unfortunately Asiana’s entertainment system is terrible and offers only a few boring choices). The last hour of the flight is the worst. The kid cries nonstop. It is so loud you cannot hear the public address announcements from the crew.

When we touch down at JFK in September sunshine just before 11 a.m., I don’t feel the least bit sated, refreshed or relaxed. On the contrary I am exhausted and stressed-out.

 

Experience 2:

There’s a lot to like in Emirates business class on the Airbus A380. The sleeper seats are spacious and comfortable. The carrier’s “ICE” entertainment system is second to none. The menu is eclectic and the food is tasty. Amenities are all around you, from the duvet and mattress to the luxurious lounge and bar in the back of the upper deck. What could possibly ruin this?

I’m at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, walking up the jet bridge that leads to the upper deck, when a huge family of at least a dozen, six of them kids, rudely cuts the line. Please, I say to myself, don’t let them be sitting near me. There are almost a hundred seats in the A380’s business class, so my chances are good, right?

Wrong. They aren’t just seated near me, they are seated all around me. They are in the row ahead of me, in the seats next to me, and in the row behind me too. The adults in the group are obnoxious enough, shouting across the aisles at each other. The kids, though, take it to the next level. They’re screaming, running up and down the aisle. They’re climbing over the seat-backs, their heads popping up, whack-a-mole style. One of the little girls is yelling out to her sister, whose name sounds like the word “Bay.” Every two minutes, for the next seven hours, she will scream,”BAAAAAAAAAAY!”

When I can’t take it any more I walk over and ask the mother to please control her children. I feel like the biggest asshole in the world, but this cost me a lot of money, and the whole point was to be comfortable and away from the usual racket.

Slouched in her chair, the woman looks up at me contemptuously. “They are only children.”

This is a standard rebuttal. We paid for the tickets, the argument goes, so we have a right to be here, and hey, it’s just kids being kids, right? Actually, no, I’m sorry, this is not a legitimate justification.

As the flight goes on, there’s no escape from the racket. Not even in the bar in the A380’s rear cabin — the bar! — which as the hours pass has becomes a sort of day-care center full of mothers clutching their crying children. Perhaps they are congregating here out of courtesy? After all, people in the bar are socializing and drinking, not trying to sleep. Maybe, but that doesn’t excuse the one woman who has placed her toddler on one of the bar’s semi-circular sofas and is playing The Screaming Game. The Screaming Game goes like this: The kid screams, and mom screams back. The kid then screams louder, and mom screams back, also louder. The kid then lets out a piercing, blasting, hell-on-earth screech of enough decibels to blow the rudder off the airplane. Mom screams back yet again, louder still, in demented encouragement, then looks around, smiling, as if to say, isn’t my shrieking child just the cutest darned thing in the world?

I am not making this up.

And here’s the thing:

When you’re flying in long-haul first or business class, you aren’t merely paying for transportation. You are paying for comfort. For luxury, even. This is premium class, not economy class. That includes not having your experienced wrecked by disruptive passengers of any age. This isn’t about protecting the “arrogant” flyers up front from the noisy riffraff in steerage. But in premium class there’s a higher standard and greater expectations. And while perhaps you have the right to bring your kids along with you, you do not have the right to ruin the experience of those around you.

Unlike a high percentage of the people who travel up front, I was not flying on company expense or cashing in frequent-flyer miles. I paid out of pocket for my ticket, and I did so to be as comfortable and pampered as possible. This is not something I normally can afford, and my expectations were high — as they should have been. And the fare I paid was a steal. What about those people who pay six, seven, or ten thousand dollars for a premium seat? Shouldn’t there be some assurance that they won’t be subject to needless discomfort over the course of their journey?

Neither is it the offended passenger’s responsibility to deal with the problem by, say, buying a pair of noise-cancelling headphones (a commonly offered non-solution). For one thing, most premium cabin seats are already equipped with noise-reducing headphones, and they do not block out the sound of a yelling kid. But more importantly, it throws the onus onto the person being annoyed, rather than the party doing the annoying. It’s like saying: I reserve the right to destroy the peace and quiet of those around me, and it’s their responsibility to deal with it.

Notice also that my experiences cover two different phenomenon. The first involve infants crying through no fault of their own; the other involves children, which is to say their parents, simply not giving a damn. Both are vexing issues, but it’s the latter that’s the much bigger problem. This isn’t so much about kids crying, annoying as that can be, than it is about kids, toddler age and frequently older, who scream and who shriek, and whose parents seem to find this either entertaining or otherwise unimportant. Thus, it’s less an issue about children being brought into a place where they simply don’t belong, than an issue about adults who fail to control them.

How carriers might deal with this is a tough question. Noisiness in the context of a lounge can easily be addressed by asking the offenders to please hush down, and, should this fail, being asked to leave. On the airplane, though, you can’t simply relegate families to another section of the plane. Maybe it’s time for more airlines to start enforcing an age limit. It’s is a difficult issue, because more and more high-end flyers are traveling with youngsters, and the last thing airlines want to do is alienate their most valuable customers. The key, maybe, is knowing the point at which you begin ticking off more people than you’re making happy. Some carriers, including Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia, already have restrictions, either banning kids below a certain age outright, or establishing kid-free zones within a particular cabin.

Nobody in any section of the plane wants to deal with a noisy kid for thirteen hours. But if you’re going to do something, it would only makes sense to start at the front, in premium class, where there’s a much greater expectation of comfort.

 

Note to readers…

You are welcome to leave your comments below, but please refrain from insults and, especially, threats. Since this post was first published in 2015, I’ve received buckets of hate mail, up to and including threats of bodily harm. It astounds me how frequently certain people insist on making this a personal thing.

Rarely will you hear somebody say, for example: “I feel that families with small children have every right to be in business class, and the fact that children might be noisy is a risk that any premium class passenger has to accept.”

Instead, I am called “despicable” and “disgusting” and there is something “obviously wrong with” me. Or, as one letter-writer put it, I “should be pitied.”

And the most pompous, insufferable, and insulting comments of all are those that insinuate non-parents are somehow less humane than everybody else, existing in some half-developed state where true empathy and understanding are impossible, simply by virtue of not having children.

Another thing that keeps coming up in angry letters and comments is the concept of “entitlement.” A passenger who sits in business class and dares to complain about screaming children is guilty of demonstrating “entitlement.” This is a common buzzword these days, and the intent here, I think, is to reframe the topic in sociopolitical terms — where it clearly does not belong.

Some people buy fancier houses than other people. Some buy more expensive cars. Some buy organic groceries. We all have our preferences and our choices for certain comforts. We pay extra for them. And, therefore, yes, absolutely, we are “entitled” to whatever they are designed to offer. Paying for business class on a plane is no different than paying a premium for any other product.

Let’s say you that splurge and spend a lot of money for a top of the line mobile phone. You’ve been saving up for this phone. It’s got certain features that you really want, and you’re willing to pay extra for them. But after you purchase it and take it home, you realize it doesn’t work. Or maybe it half works. When you bring it back to the store and ask for an exchange or a refund, as well you should, does the manager sneer at you and accuse you of being an “entitled jerk”?

 

Addendum:

Update: July 1st, Kennedy Airport; a good example of what I’m talking about:

A woman with a stroller is standing in a crowded boarding lounge. In the stroller is a two or three year-old girl. The girl is not crying, she is screaming, at the top of her lungs — just shrieking and shrieking and shrieking, angry as a tornado, throwing things and carrying on and demanding to be let out of the stroller. It’s so loud that you can’t even hear the boarding announcements. The mom, for her part, simply stands there, chatting away on a mobile phone, as if none of this is happening. She makes absolutely no effort — nothing — to quiet the apocalyptic wailing of her kid. This goes on for about fifteen minutes.

 

All photos by the author.

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On the Streets of Vietnam’s Capital, it’s Traffic as Art and Chaos. Plus: a Ride With EVA Air, Taiwan’s “Other Airline.”

PHOTOS AND STORY BY PATRICK SMITH

 

HANOI, VIETNAM

THE GUIDEBOOKS will tell you that the highlight of a trip to Hanoi is an excursion to the Ha Long Bay, about three-and-a-half hours drive east of the city. And maybe they’re right. Ha Long, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is easily one of the world’s most scenic places, with its insane vista of sawtooth karsts — thousands of them, each hundreds of feet high — jutting from the sea.

But it’s the traffic, above and beyond anything else, that I’ll best remember about Hanoi itself.

If all the world’s travel writers joined forces to describe the capital’s traffic, I reckon they wouldn’t do it justice. I’ll give it my own pedestrian take (pun intended), ill-equipped as my talents may be at coloring such a vivid spectacle.

It’s a peculiar kind of traffic, unlike, say, the aggressive chaos of Cairo or the steam-cooked gridlock of Bangkok. It’s not a traffic jam, per se, for the flow seldom stops. Rather, it moves as a river moves: unyielding, yes, but steady and predictable in both volume and velocity — an incessant whitewater of internal combustion.

And the majority of vehicles are neither cars nor trucks, but hundreds of thousands of scooters, motorbikes and a dwindling number of bicycles. The people of Hanoi are in constant motion atop some form of two-wheeled transport or another: men and women; sidesaddle girls with parasols; toddlers (sans helmets) clutched to the backs of their parents.

Much, if not all, of Hanoi’s commerce, too, moves this way, with bales, boxes and everything else towering above the driver (plus, often enough, a passenger or two). It quickly becomes a game of sorts, pointing out the various and impossible cargoes tottering around the city in great, center-of-gravity-defying loads: a foursome of 50-gallon drums; an outboard motor; a 300-pound pneumatic drill; stacks of caged chickens; a tree.

Everything but the kitchen sink, you’d say, except, wait, there it goes: an old Chinese two-stroke hauling not one but two porcelain sinks, complete with countertops and plumbing, their metal legs pointing dangerously at adjacent vehicles.

The rules of the road, if we can call them such, are pretty straightforward: go, go and keep going, eyes locked ahead. There is no slowing down, no veering for the benefit of other motorists — and certainly not for pedestrians. Every intersection is a hive of crisscrossing vehicles that somehow, against any logic and seemingly against physics as well, manage to miss each other.

Whatever forces keep the vehicles from crashing, it is invisible to the naked eye. Only in slow motion, perhaps, would some system of order, some measure of give and take, actually be revealed. The traffic acts as a single organic thing, with each participant, like the legs of a caterpillar, responsible for a series of rapid, almost imperceptible moves.

From the tourist’s perspective, it’s difficult to fathom how anybody is able to cross a street and survive to tell the tale. It’s tempting to wonder if perhaps they don’t: the people on either side of a road having spent their entire lives apart, separated by a kind of Berlin Wall of impenetrable traffic.

But they do cross. And the tourist, too, has little choice but to eventually give it a try. You creep ever so gingerly into the swarm. You do not wait or ask for the right of way, you take the right of way, in a steady procession of quick, head-to-head duels with each oncoming rider. The pedestrian moves slowly, but fluidly. It’s a swim, a battle dance.

Of all the perilous, even hilarious things to see, few are more unnerving than the sight of young children, even entire families, crammed onto a single motorbike, swerving down the boulevards and racing through intersections. Most of the children are unhelmeted and many are unrestrained.

There is nothing remotely safe about this practice, don’t get me wrong, but I feel there’s a lesson in there somewhere — in the stark contrast it provides to the smothering, hyperprotective form of parenting we’re accustomed to seeing in the U.S. This is the other extreme, of course, but in a way it makes you wonder where the sane middle ground might lie.

At one point, as a storm moved in, I watched as a woman frantically affixed a plastic rain slicker to her toddler as he hung precariously to the back of her Honda scooter. Moments later, mother and son were roaring through traffic again, neither with a helmet, the child grabbing on as best he could.

 __________

 

I’d flown to Vietnam on EVA Air. Economy class.

You don’t hear much about EVA, Taiwan’s “other airline” and chief rival of the better-known if not better regarded China Airlines. EVA was set up in 1989 as an affiliate of the Evergreen shipping conglomerate, and today operates a fleet of over 50 aircraft headquartered at Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport. It ain’t quite Singapore or Cathay Pacific, but EVA was recently ranked ninth best international carrier in the world according to Travel & Leisure magazine.

The first leg was Los Angeles to Taipei aboard EVA’s flight 001. Flight 1, how cool is that? There’s something prestigious, almost glamorous about single-digit flight numbers. Carriers usually assign these identifiers to their highest-profile pairings. New York to London, say. Or in EVA’s case it’s LAX-TPE, a 13-hour run operated by a Boeing 777-300.

Stepping on board for the 1 a.m. departure, the first thing that struck me was the immaculate-ness of the airplane. You’d swear the thing had just rolled off the assembly line that morning. Not a spot, stain, smudge or single scrap of litter to be found. Of course, this kind of sparkle and shine isn’t unique to EVA, and in sad fact such high standards of cleanliness don’t normally apply to U.S. carriers. Heck, the heirloom DC-9 that I flew aboard in Venezuela a few years back was better groomed than most of the newest generation Boeings and Airbuses flying in the States. Our planes are cleaner — and service is better too — than was the case five or 10 years ago, but we still have a way to go.

EVA does its cabins in a muted gray-green — a decor that is somehow both earthy and industrial. This oddly calming, yin-yangy scheme, together with the 777′s beautifully sculpted ceiling and bins, give the jet a distinctly cozy feel. Cozy, need it be said, is not a word normally associated with commercial planes.

Ergonomic touches include contoured seatbacks, cloth fabric (temperature neutral and less slippery than leather), adjustable tray-tables with cup holders, and legroom a good two inches more than standard coach. There were slippers in the seat pocket and a big, tiltable video screen with actual headphones, not ear-buds. In the lavatory was an assortment of balms, sprays, creams and a bouquet of orchids (plastic, but still) sprouting from a wall-mounted vase.

I will also mention, perhaps at my own peril, something that every passenger was duly aware of, whether or not he or she was willing or able to acknowledge it. That being the attractiveness of the EVA Air cabin staff, every one of whom appeared to be a Taiwanese beauty queen, impeccably uniformed and smiling.

Now, there were some kinks. That great big video screen is only useful when there’s something worth watching, and EVA’s video selections are even worse than those in the clearance bin at Target. (Air-to-ground camera views, now common on many overseas carriers and an exciting touch during takeoff and landing, also were absent.) And although the beauty queens came around repeatedly with drinks, and although a snack buffet had been set up in the rear of the cabin, the meals were bland and the portions lacking. Oddest of all, the trays came with no condiments whatsoever — no salt, no pepper, no dressing for the tiny cup of iceberg lettuce.

The key to surviving 13 hours in economy is compartmentalizing your time. Take the hours one-by-one, with a series of tasks for each. Eat, watch a movie, read an article, do some computer work, play a game. Repeat. Another proven method is to sleep for as long as you possibly can. For a lot of folks this technique requires ample doses of pills or alcohol, but it’s a simpler (and less dehydrating) task on those rare occasions when the coach cabin is empty and you’re able to lay claim to a block of three or four seats. Flip up the armrests and you’ve got yourself a pretty comfortable bed. It’s funny, on underbooked flights, watching people stake out their territory, sliding over to the middle seat to ward off infiltrators from the left or right aisles, hoarding pillows and blankets.

I was one of those people en route to Taipei, and was fully horizontal within minutes of finishing my non-salad and papier-mâché noodles. It was that or watch “Toy Story 3.”

I woke up about nine hours later, pretended to enjoy a tin of flavorless eggs, and soon enough we were nosing down over the mountains of old Formosa.

And as the plane touched down in the ashen, pre-dawn sky, something struck me — one of those moments when you’re reminded of the remarkable capabilities of air travel, be they awe-inspiring or just plain weird: Between the time I’d landed in California and our arrival in Taipei, thanks to my consistent westward direction, it had been dark out for 19 hours and counting.

 

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This story ran originally on the website Salon.