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Somewhere over Syria

A few departure notes from Jordan: first, our traveling party referenced the recent Muslim cleric incident on that commercial plane in Minneapolis -- when we looked up at the moving video map on our Royal Jordanian Airlines flight -- and saw the constant orienting arrow to Mecca. Sure enough, a man was praying in the back of the aircraft prior to takeoff. Prayer is often part of the flying experience on RJ, and I've now flown this airline so much over the past few years (they do, after all, fly to or close enough to all the best "hot spots" in our business of late), I've found myself regretting that I'm not a part of their frequent flyer program.

This flight, on a brand new Airbus A320, is mostly Jordanians. There are about half a dozen American security contractors -- instantly recognizable and now ubiquitous in any airport in the region. As is the case on board many airlines based in the Middle East, there is a man standing in the front galley hallway, facing the First Class cabin, wearing a leather jacket with his back to the cockpit door. He stood there during takeoff and will stay there for the rest of the flight. He is armed. An in-flight security guard. Very effective. The only hint that we're on a non-U.S. carrier (aside from the guy in the leather jacket, the guy praying in the rear of the aircraft and the little "moving Mecca" icon) is the smell of cigarette smoke. I asked about it, and was told that both pilots smoke. It's now wafting through the passenger compartment after the cockpit door was opened to serve meals to the pilot and first officer. You'd think they'd open the window a crack, but apparently not.

Of interest to airline buffs was what I saw off our left wing on takeoff from Amman: five mothballed Iraqi Airlines jets, mostly old 727s, some missing engines. They are parked on a remote patch of outlying desert on the airport grounds. The last time I saw aircraft with that same "livery" (paint scheme) was at the Baghdad airport during the U.S. invasion. Some were simply parked on the tarmac, while others were blown to pieces. I remember a 3rd Infantry colonel telling me at the time that some young tank commander took a little "target practice" and got in big trouble for blowing up the jets -- evidently finding the big white targets just too irresistible after days of amped-up driving across the desert. The Army was not happy that photos of the jet carcasses were published, as they saw it as needless destruction. I believe the whole episode was chronicled in one of the many insta-books published after the invasion by various newspaper staffs.

Anyway, if anybody is looking for Saddam's old commercial fleet: it's in Amman.
                  
The best moment of our seemingly-endless Thursday came during boarding. The three of us (I'm joined by the indefatigable Subrata De and Megan Marcus) noted a man boarding -- and there's no other way to put this -- with my name over his left breast. He was about 40, accompanied by his girlfriend, and wearing a black fleece emblazoned with the NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS logo, in full color. That was a first for me: while I'm more or less used to seeing our hats and other logo stuff on co-workers, this was my first experience as clothier of a complete stranger. I couldn't stand it -- too many questions -- so I walked to his seat in the far rear of the plane, and asked how it was he was wearing such a distinctive garment. While I had frankly hoped for a more romantic ending ("I won this in a duel with a man in Beersheba..."), it turns out this member of the NBC Fleece Community was given the garment by his cousin, a videotape editor in our Baghdad bureau. While admittedly a bit of a buzz kill, it's actually rather funny, considering that we shipped a box of fleeces to the bureau last year -- imagining all the while how it would brighten morale for our brave colleagues, braving another Iraq winter -- and it turns out at least one of our gifts... was re-gifted!

Still, what an odd experience seeing one's own name on a complete stranger. What must it be like to be Ralph Lauren? Or better yet, the horse that posed for his logo?

As I write this, it's a bright, cloudless morning at 36,000 feet over Syria -- but it's 1 a.m. back home, and we're so tired, we're not quite sure where we are. It's axiomatic that when we travel, we remain on the home clock. The only time that matters, anywhere in the world, is the time remaining until 6:30 p.m. ET, the first feed of Nightly News. As a consequence, we often end up seemingly working two days for every one in New York. While the events we cover in this region are often during daytime, the onset of darkness only signals the beginning of the workday back home. Sleep becomes a rare commodity, and the flight home is often the first opportunity to collapse. A plane change (and airline change and terminal change) in Paris will interrupt things today, and we have much anxiety over the weather system bearing down on New York, but hopes are high. 36,000 feet, to be exact.

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