First time in first class

First class has always seemed like some mythical place to me. I never knew what went on behind that curtain. Yes, I walk past the few rows every time I enter the plane to walk back to my seat, in what is inevitably the last row of the plane, forcing me to sleep upright the entire flight. But walking past the seats with the extra two inches of width space, the extra foot of leg room, and the fully adjustable seats leaves more questions than answers.

Once the flight attendant pulls that curtain, what goes on? For all I know the passengers could have an all-out rave, be eating fillet mignon, or more than likely, getting more drink refills. Another mystery is the lucky passengers of first class. Who are they?

On one of the many legs of my flight when I moved to Saipan I sat next to a ranking military official in coach. I won’t say his name, but he’s regularly in the news nowadays. If he’s sitting in coach (coach!), who are these people in first class?

Not to mention the fact that Southwest Airlines—the budget airline that was the go-to carrier for the majority of the first 22 years of my life—doesn’t even have first class. If an entire airline can’t handle it, who are these people and what are they receiving in this magical realm?

Well, I finally got my answers early Saturday morning as I sat in seat 2G on a flight from Saipan to Shanghai.

Everything was how I envisioned it. The seats were just a few inches wider, the leg room a little bigger, and the quantity of food a little greater.

Unfortunately, to my disappointment, there was no 4am wild and crazy party, no mini-movie screen dropping from the ceiling, and no big-name celebrity. (I’m not counting my traveling companion, KSPN2 TV reporter Lannie Walker. To me she’s always just going to be Lannie, no matter how many times people stop and ask to take her picture).

What and who did I see?

About 5am I looked around and noticed that I was the only one with a fully upright seat. Everyone else had long before reclined their seat and fallen asleep. Mothers placed their hand gently on their kids as the two fell asleep next to each other, men curled up in balls trying to stay warm under the blanket, and everyone tossed and turned at some point. The vision was really no different than what I see during every night flight back in that drab place called coach.

First class, or business class, as it is now known (how politically correct), really is just coach to a higher degree. But that higher degree is something I believe everyone should experience once in life.