I’m writing this while flying from Addis Adaba to Sana’a, about an hour and a half flight. The Lufthansa flight is now quite empty, having off-loaded a whole bunch of people in Addis where there is an Organization of African Union meeting this weekend. My seatmate on the way from Frankfurt was one of the U.N representatives, and he must have been pretty senior because several staff kept coming over with documents for him to look at and solicitously checking about his passport and landing card. Some one said that the U.N Secretary General was in first class.

Maybe so, because when we landed in Addis, the plane pulled up to a red carpet and let all the dignitaries out. Then the pilot restarted the engines and pulled over to the terminal to disembark the normal passengers.

Speaking of first class, I got upgraded on the way from Dulles to Frankfurt. The food was about the same as in business, but the seat made into a perfectly flat bed which was quite comfortable. The service was very polite and helpful, but I question if it’s really worth the difference between first and business classes for the amount of money involved?

The flying business is getting to be less and less fun. At Dulles, the United business class check in was hopelessly overwhelmed. You do your own e-ticket check in of course, but then you need an agent to put the baggage tag on your suitcase and hand you your boarding card. There were about three clerks handling at least six podiums. When a clerk finally turned to my machine, there must have been six or seven baggage tags hanging out of the printer. Fortunately, mine was the second.
Security at Dulles, despite the new facilities, was not much better. You look around at all the perfectly normal people who fly all the time, and you wonder whether we could do this better if we passed them through faster and spent the effort on the doubtful ones. Meanwhile, we waste a lot of time of children, the elderly, and people who pose no threat whatsoever.

Frankfurt was cold and snowy, especially because we did not get a jetway. So much for not needing a coat! United must have been saving money because we off-loaded out on the tarmac and were put on a bus to the terminal. Same in reverse when we left on Lufthansa. We noticed the rows of yellow snowplows, wondering what they were for? Inside, reading the paper in the lounge, we learned they had a big storm in Frankfurt Thursday, with 90 delayed flights and runway closures. But, by the time we arrived Friday morning it was all cleaned up.

On our flight from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, we crossed over the Red Sea and Egypt. I did not look in time to see the pyramids. The day was perfectly clear however and I could see the desert 35,000 feet below – sand dunes, wadis, and other formations. Now, as we jet toward Sana’a, it is dark and we can’t see any lights below.