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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
The pilot journeys to the East, an exotic land of spick-and-span metropolises, superb airlines and gibbons that shriek exactly like car alarms.
Aug 29, 2003 | NEWARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
On Sunday morning, Aug. 10, I am catching Malaysia Airlines flight MH091 from Newark to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and eventually onward to Kuala Lumpur. Newark has been cloyingly recast as Liberty International, but it's forever the same cheerless bowl of concrete and cars.
In a restaurant in Terminal B I'm eating breakfast beneath framed pictures of sandwiches when the Malaysia crew comes promenading past, headed for their Boeing 777 at the end of the concourse -- the pilots in military-style suits, the stewards in green tuxedoes, and the girls in sarong-style dresses of melon and teal.
At the surrounding tables are the rest of Flight 91's eventual occupants, and present company excluded it's a substantially... let's just say Eastern-looking lot. A mix of Arab and Malay and Indian, with a liberal distribution of skullcaps and prayer beads, and a handful of women in full black burqa right down to the gloves.
It's all very glammy and international here in decidedly hardscrabble Newark. I like it. Even if it's probably a disconcerting sight for the throngs of other travelers headed to Orlando, Detroit and Charlotte, with enough dark skin and beards to keep squeamish Americans away from airports forever and hunkered down in their xenophobic hidy-holes. And while I hate saying it, something tells me MH091 gives a thrice-weekly dose of the willies to the already edgy staff down at the metal detectors.
With the exception of Continental Airlines' route to Tel Aviv and Delta's to Istanbul, no other U.S. airlines operate service to any part of the Middle East. What few routes remained were curtailed after you-know-what, and it's natural to wonder, geopolitics considered, if they'll ever be reinstated. Seems we're missing out, as today's departure is booked completely full.
Malaysia Airlines is Southeast Asia's largest carrier and flies to 100 destinations on six continents (that's all of them except Antarctica), which is something no U.S. airline can say. It just won its third consecutive Skytrax award for best cabin staff.
Onboard the immaculate 777 the tuxedoed stewards distribute hot towels and come around with clipboards to verify meal requests and peanut allergies. The six-page cardstock menu is printed exclusively for Flight 91. I've got in-seat movies, and an adjustable headrest and footrest. In economy class. Up front, the customers are reclining in sleepers and watching the industry's only 10.4-inch personal video screens.
(In fairness to good taste, and after sitting on the aisle long enough to have several good looks, I must now throw in an addendum about those uniforms. While the dresses of the stewardesses are pleasant and flattering, the gaudily patterned lapels of their male counterparts' tuxedo coats are a sight to behold. I think I recall Bill Murray wearing a similar outfit during those late '70s lounge-singer sketches on "Saturday Night Live.")
In perfect, almost aristocratically tinged English, the captain outlines our twelve-and-a-half-hour flight: up to Newfoundland and across the North Atlantic; over Europe and central Turkey; through the narrow corridor separating Turkey, Iran and Iraq; then across western Iran before a southward turn along the Persian Gulf to Dubai.
Breaking up my trip are layovers both in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, home of two of the world's most sparkling airports (so I'm told). It wouldn't be fair to say I'm anticipating the airports more than the rustic Borneo eco-lodge where I'll be spending five days, but I suppose I'm lucky to find a modicum of excitement in the idea of a jet-lagged stopover.
