Staring Down The Barrel Of Nine Hours In Coach

Not looking forward to a long-haul flight in coach helped me appreciate… well, everything. 

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It’s been a very long time since I flew in the back of the plane on a long-haul flight. While I’m so fortunate that I can’t even count the number of trans-Atlantic trips I’ve taken over the last 15 years, I can recall every one in coach over that period. It’s three trips, five total segments over the water – each of them a mistake fare.

Mistake is always the key.

The truth is that there are certain things one graduate from and while it may not be egalitarian, I don’t think it should be shameful either. One might graduate from the bus to their own car, or from driving themselves to the airport to taking a car service, or from parking in such deep economy that you can’t see the car when you land, to leaving it right up front.

I’ve graduated from coach and every time in the back of a plane on a long-haul flight, it’s so clear. But when the mistake fare flashes across my screen, it never is.

This deal was $225 roundtrip from New York to Paris. As part of our “Year of Lucy” this was her last and final birthday gift, a trip through Europe with our family and her grandmother. A reader offered me some expiring upgrade certificates for the way home and those cleared immediately. I couldn’t be more grateful to that angel.

I’d done all of the things I could to make us eligible for flying in the front. I cut our party down to three instead of four passengers by splitting off my mother-in-law, I left my son off the ticket until the airport (because of age verification, American Airlines won’t process upgrades when an infant is on the ticket.)

My mother-in-law, a lowly Gold with American Airlines received her upgrade two days out. It was her first time in long-haul business class, and we genuinely couldn’t have been happier for her.

That still left two adults, one ten-year-old, and a lap infant in an economy row on the starboard side of the aircraft. That’s a crowded row of seats with virtually no seat pitch.

I had submitted for our own upgrades but until we arrived at the gate, nothing had cleared. We knew they had one unsold seat, and one person that hadn’t checked in, and we were alone on the upgrade list in positions 1, 2, and 3.

We were called to the desk. There was just one seat to be had and we could not upgrade the other two to Premium Economy despite the flight going out with four seats open in that cabin. More on that in another post. There’s no question that the upgrade would go to my wife who would also take our lap infant son.

That left Lucy and I in the back. It was a much-needed humility moment for both of us. She’d asked some questions that only a business class daughter would ask:

• “Can we still pick what we want to eat?”
  • Kind of, but not as many choices
• “But we can eat whenever we want”
  • No, this is just twice – immediately upon boarding and right before landing
• “And there’s no way to make this a bed?”
  • I mean, if you lay this way and we score some blankets and pillows…

I think for both of us, though, it was a reminder that just traveling should be exciting enough. We are so excited to get back to Europe and Paris specifically. For my mother-in-law, Paris will be new to her, though she joined us in the south of France when we lived in England more than a decade ago.

In the week before, then again just days prior to our departure, I looked at a handful of ways to improve our stock. We could upgrade all of our seats to Premium Economy… for $2,000 each. Hard pass.

I looked at award flights on other carriers and found a handful of options, including using lifemiles or Aadvantage. We’d also have to find a way to get the airline to allow us to cancel our outbound but maintain our return. Ultimately, they provided an opportunity that would be hard to execute unless I switched our entire itinerary to a roundtrip business award spending points when I had intended on spending none at all and throwing away the $700 or so we paid for our coach flights.

There’s something odd about having the power and resources needed to stop your undesirable situation yet leaving yourself to fail anyway.

So it was just the two of us now in a row of three, far better than what we faced just before boarding. For some of it, it wasn’t that bad. The food was horrendous, and we were just a few rows away from empty Premium Economy seats but could do nothing about it.

But my daughter and I rarely have time together just the two of us. Somehow, not getting the upgrade made us grow closer to one another and it felt like we had shared something. We had, we spent nine hours in coach on an overnight flight yielding about 45-60 minutes of actual sleep before starting a tough day of walking Paris. We sat through the flatulence of a row of lads in front of us, feet invading our space from the rear, the indifference of flight attendants, the unfulfilled promise of catching a brief nap though never truly succeeding.

I stared down the barrel of nine hours in coach and it was what I thought it would be, but then it was something so much more. A reconnection with my daughter, an appreciation for what we often enjoy but take for granted, and a healthy reminder of what it is to be truly exhausted.

What do you think? 

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