One of the amazing aspects of flying in an aeroplane is the great view that you usually get to see out of the windows. To me, this is an appealing aspect of flying, and I usually try to get a window seat so that I can experience it. There are a few reasons why this doesn’t always work out; but there is one reason that, as far as I know, only occurs on Korean Air flights.
Strangely, Korean Air imposes a 'night time' on the plane, regardless of the time of day where you are flying or the time of day at either your departure or your destination. In the middle of the day, the whole plane's lighting system is shut down, everyone is told to close their window blinds, and many people go to sleep! This was particularly ridiculous for our flight from Brisbane, Australia, to Seoul, Korea, because, as the flight is almost due north, the time zones are only one-hour different and the flight was entirely through the daylight hours! Here's how the plane looked in the middle of the day:
Meanwhile the plane flies over the Pacific Ocean, New Guinea, Micronesia and the beautiful world rolls by, unseen.
And, I can assure you the cabin crew are very diligent about this! If you crack your window blind open even a little bit to see what is going on outside they will notice you immediately, race over and gesticulate wildly for you to close the blind as if you risk bringing the aeroplane down! I was so intimidated by this that it put me off asking for my packet of nuts to be put into a bowl.
This artificial 'night time' is very frustrating for an aeroplane-window watcher like me; there are amazing things to be seen out of the window of a plane, and the opportunities to see them are all too rare. Fortunately, I found a small window in the emergency exit in the rear galley, between the toilets, that I could crouch down by, so I was able to watch the world go by, albeit somewhat uncomfortably. And I did, indeed, see some amazing sights out of that little window, and I got some wonderful photos!
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