I flew out from Seattle to the family reunion, and it was actually a pleasant flight. This has become so rare for me in recent years that it seemed worth mentioning. The carrier? Air France.

I appreciated the fact that the meals were real food (pike with new potatoes, cambenbert, wine complimentary — the French take food seriously). I was stunned that the flight was relatively comfortable, and the staff was both trilingual and genuinely friendly.

I guess I'm so used to the nickle-and-diming that the US airlines depend on now that it was a bit of a shock to see a larger crew on the plane, and hear greetings that actually sounded more like actual conversation than customer-service-speak. I kept waiting for the gotcha. It never happened.

That said, everyone in Hamburg poo-poohed the AF standard of service. Why? Because it's not quite as good as Lufthansa.