Closer to the Sky

Looking back on it now, I’m not entirely sure which part of this story is the strangest.

That I asked.

Or that they said yes.

This was 1998. I was flying out of Gimpo, headed for Thailand, and for reasons that seemed entirely justified at the time, I had decided to upgrade myself to Business Class using Star Alliance miles. This felt like a small personal victory—one of those moments where you convince yourself you’ve figured something out about life.

Or at least about airline seating.

The aircraft was a Boeing 777, still relatively new then, still carrying that faint aura of the future. As we lifted off over Seoul, I settled into a seat that was wider than anything I had any business occupying, accepted a glass of red wine, and did what anyone in that situation does: I relaxed into the illusion that this was how I traveled all the time.

Lunch arrived. It was better than it needed to be. There was more wine. At some point—somewhere between the second or third glass, the exact number now lost to history—I had what I can only describe as a very reasonable idea.

I would ask to see the cockpit.

I don’t remember exactly what I said to the flight attendant. Probably something along the lines of:

“I used to be in the Air Force… blah, blah, blah.”

She smiled politely, in that way flight attendants do when they are deciding whether or not you are about to become a problem. Then she said, “Please wait a moment,” and disappeared behind the curtain.

And here is where the story should end.

But it doesn’t.

A few minutes later, she returned.

“The pilots would be delighted to have you up front.”

Delighted.

I stood up, trying to look like someone who was routinely invited into cockpits at 35,000 feet, and followed her forward. The door opened, and suddenly I was there—inside the working heart of a Boeing 777, surrounded by panels of softly glowing instruments, the muted hum of systems doing their quiet, invisible work.

And the view.

That was the thing.

The world stretched out ahead of us in a long, uninterrupted horizon of cloud and sky, the curvature just beginning to suggest itself if you looked long enough. It was less like flying and more like hovering at the edge of something vast and unfinished.

The pilots were relaxed. The plane was on autopilot, which, as it turns out, makes modern aviation feel a bit like watching someone else play a very complicated video game you’re not allowed to touch.

We talked. About Korea. About Thailand. About Phuket, where I was headed. About food—because conversations eventually find their way there.

At some point, the flight attendant reappeared and handed me another glass of red wine.

Which, even at the time, felt like it might exist in a slightly gray area of aviation protocol.

I sat there for about thirty minutes, long enough for the moment to become real, but not so long that I started to wonder if I should be helping with anything.

Eventually, I thanked them, stepped back out of the cockpit, and returned to my seat—back to the quiet, contained world of Business Class, where the wine kept coming and the illusion resumed.

It is impossible to imagine that happening now.

Not just because of rules, but because of the way the world has changed. There was, back then, a kind of unspoken ease to travel. Doors were not yet sealed in the same way. The line between passenger and crew, between curiosity and access, felt—if not open—at least negotiable.

You could ask.

And sometimes, someone would say yes.

Then came September 2001, and with it, a different understanding of the sky. The cockpit door closed for good. It had to. No one questions that.

But every now and then, on a long flight, when the cabin lights dim and the plane settles into that steady, almost unreal glide above the clouds, I think about that afternoon somewhere between Seoul and Bangkok—when the sky felt just a little closer.