Would you like coffee? Tea? Or perhaps a class act?

A friend of mine had an interesting flight experience the other day.

We all hear how terrible airline travel has become. Frankly, I didn't think it was much of a treat years ago, but it is what it is and I think the airlines do what they can during tough times.

Which brings me to my friend, Steve. A good guy who did what he could do for some folks during tough times.

Steve travels enough that he can inexpensively upgrade to 1st class once in awhile, making his flight much more pleasant. This is a dubious benefit, but a benefit never the less. During the flight you get better service, higher quality food and perhaps even free drinks. The nice thing about 1st class is that upon landing you can walk normally, not hunched over like Frodo in "The Lord of the Rings".

Anyway, Steve is boarding a flight one day and as he's making the left turn towards 1st class he looks right to see who is in the cheap seats. Turns out, there are a number of soldiers back in steerage, all making a fashion statement in their camo BDUs.

Hmmm.

He approaches a flight attendant and talks to her about swapping seats with one of the defenders of freedom. She agrees and they start the process of swapping seats. As this occurs, others in 1st class see what's going on and join in on the fun.

It ends up that all the soldier's in steerage end up in 1st class, and some first class people ended up in steerage. In fact, there were more offers from the folks in 1st class to swap seats than there were soldiers. How about that?

What a nice flight, for everyone.

As Steve said in an email to his wife "Now 1^st class has a bunch of Army guys there. Pretty cool."

Pretty cool indeed.