Unnerving mystery

Last Saturday morning I was reading the news on my iPad when I first found out about the missing Malaysian jet. My heart sank. Then I braced myself as I let my eyes read on in the article to see the plane's destination -- Beijing. I recall letting out a groan. I hate it when tragedies strike the people of this nation, people that I live among and care about.

I often fly in and out of nearby Thailand, Malaysia's neighbor, and the flights I take travel a similar route to the path of the Malaysian jet.

Most of the flights out of Thailand that I am able to book are night flights like the Malaysian one. In the last year, the only daytime flights in and out of Thailand from China cost $1000 more than the night flights. So night flights it is.

I remember being in the Bangkok airport after midnight last November, and the airport had HUNDREDS of night flights to locations all over the world. The shops and restaurants at the airport were open 24-hours a day, and I think there were more people at that airport at night than I had ever seen during daylight hours. It was a madhouse. From this I ascertain that night flights from Southeast Asia to China are pretty normal and most travelers who value the health of their pocketbooks take them.

I can picture the well-dressed, well-mannered mid-to-upper class Chinese people boarding the flight in Malaysia last week, just like they do on the Thailand flights. They pushed their bags in the overhead bins and settled in for a 6-hour long nap, only to be interrupted by an occasional offer of drinks or snacks by the flight attendants, just like on my recent trip. Because I can picture this in my mind so vividly, the whole event has hit a little too close to home for me.

It seems so unfair that a crazy person or two have to take down so many innocents with them.

If anyone ever tells you that Chinese don't value human life like we do in America, trust me, that person has absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

Precious pebbles

I fly quite a lot. I don't love to, but I do.

In Asia, when it is time to board the plane, we just get on the plane and go. The flight attendants speak sweetly in low, pleasant tones, as if we were fellow human beings. They never roll their eyes when you ask for something to drink, and they are slim enough to walk down the aisles without brushing up against passengers in the aisle seats. The planes are clean and there is plenty of leg room. They give you something to eat and drink. They even answer the flight attendant call button! When the top ten airline rankings come out each year, you can bet that about half of them on the list are airlines out of Asia.

And then there are airlines in America. I usually fly American or United, so I can't speak to the condition of the other U.S.-based airlines. But no airline out of America even makes it into the top 20 airlines of the world. What a shame that we can't get it together in the airline industry. It's almost embarrassing considering the world expects us to be the best at everything.

I've found that while boarding in America, they have created quite an interesting and ridiculous class system, one that leaves me somewhat baffled.

The agent gets on the loudspeaker and spews out the priority of boarding.

"First class. Business class."

Several dozen men and women strut up to the ropes as if they were celebrities. Hate to tell them, but I don't recognize any of them. And I am dressed better than some of them.

"Advantage Elite passengers. Executive Platinum. Platinum. Gold."

Weaker people would have their self-esteem plummet about now as they watch more people file into the plane like they were our superiors. I am not used to all this nonsense, but everyone else seems to be used to it and thinks it is normal.

"Sapphire. Emerald. Ruby passengers can now board."

I start laughing. Out loud. Can this possibly get any more ridiculous? I feel like I am back in first grade lining up to go back into the classroom after recess. Teacher's pet gets to go first. That kind of thing.

"Pebble," I say. Another non-elite passenger waiting by my side looks at me with a curious glance, and I explain. If we all have to be some kind of rock to get on the plane, I am in the pebble class, I say. I get an encouraging snicker in reply. It's probably not good to encourage me when I am making snide remarks.

For a first-class round-trip ticket, first-class passengers paid $7000 more than I did (seriously) for my economy seat ticket. So yeah, let them go first, let them use real silverware (and cloth napkins!) and by all means stroke their egos. I feel smarter than them anyway for making my more frugal purchase. I spend at least half of our 15-hour flight thinking of things I could have bought for $7000 if I had it to blow, and a wider seat on a plane is not one of them.

But really, this class nonsense created by our sub-par airlines is comical. They are going to run out of rock names if they keep this up.