Day 1: a living nightmare in the air

It can only get better.

That was my response after a living nightmare of a flight from Newark to Orly Airport in Paris.

I heartily do not recommend British Airways’ OpenSkies to anyone. More like ClosedSkies as in prison-style closed.

The day did start well, being chauffeured from South Philadelphia to Newark by my good friend Fred Linge in Der Blitzwagen – Fred’s gorgeous white BMW. At Newark, one of the stranger airports around, check in was painless, and TSA was fairly so. I did some work at the gate, bought some water and snacks for the flight, and read the New York Times, which was available at Newark (it wasn’t in 2007).

Then it got worse. Rapidly.

I had paid extra for an exit row seat, which, on the diagram of the plane provided when I booked the flight, was a solo seat. I had seen such a seat in 2016 flying to Paris and it was an attractive proposition.

But BA switched the plane without informing me, and while I still had the exit seat, it was an aisle seat on a row of 3.

Even that would have been fine had not a 600-pound man who did not fit in his seat descend on the adjacent seat. I am not a small person, but I fit in the seat. He took half of my seat. I spent the flight leaning into the aisle by necessity as his bare flesh – he was dressed in traditional American le slob fashion, a hopelessly small T-shirt and sweat pants – rubbed against me. To make it worse, he hadn’t bathed in a while. When he got up from his seat, I was treated to views of his hairy, stinking ass, because he didn’t bother to pull up the sweat pants, right in my face.

The plane was swelteringly hot, the cabin crew surly and inefficient (a man collapsed in the aisle and passengers had to go get the crew), the “food” unspeakable, and the plane noisy and uncomfortable even without The Malodorous Hulk leaning into me. It was even hard to read in a comfortable position, though I did finish the Sunday NYT and a couple of chapters of my book on Byzantine history.

Some seven hours later – felt like seventy-seven – we landed at Orly, Paris’ smaller airport to the south of the city, and I was greeted by a … shuttle bus.

There was no jetway, just a 1950’s style ramp to the tarmac and the … bus.

One guiding principle in my life is that I avoid “shuttle buses” at all costs. I will pay extra for anything if it avoids a “shuttle bus”. Even when such a horror is offered to media at an event, I shell out for a cab to stay off the shuttle bus.

No such choice here. So, after an exhausting and quasi-sickening flight, on a f****** bus which eventually, after a roundabout ride, deposited me at Orly’s West Terminal.

At least it was a nice, sunny day, and things were about to get better.

How could they not?