Delta is actually not the only US airline to offer service to Africa. North American Airlines operates several flights a week to sub-Saharan Africa from JFK

With regard to denfield's post about airline food or lack thereof:

Northwest does offer snack boxes (oops, I'm sorry, "smartsnacks," because nobody in Minneapolis knows how to use capital letters) on flights from the West Coast to MSP and points east. You get a cute color-coded cardboard box containing an assortment of shrink-wrapped cheez whiz, post-nuclear-holocaust meat product, crackers, some form of solidified fruit-flavored corn syrup, and perhaps a cookie or a peppermint candy. In First Class, it's a shrink-wrapped sandwich made from the same meat product and cheez whiz, served on medium-density particleboard with a packet of Dijonnaise. Oh, and a wet wipe and a napkin. All yours for $3.

Personally, I'd rather eat the dollar bills. At least paper is a good source of fiber.

Long-haul air travel in this day and age makes me wonder if the Breatharians weren't on to a good thing. Whatever comes through the A/C packs can't possibly be more toxic than the food, and they can't charge you for air. Yet.

Great article.

I fly between New York and Shanghai on a regular basis, and since these two show up on most people's list of top ten world cities, I'm baffled as well as inconvenienced as to why there is no non-stop flight between them. Surely this has to be a result of Sino-U.S. negotiations of how many flights each gets to the other's territory or something? Any idea what's going on here?

Also, you said "the customs and immigration facilities in the lower level of Terminal 3, and the narrow escalators that lead to and from them, are possibly the dingiest in America." Having just come back from Shanghai a couple of weeks ago, the contrast between brand-spankin' future coolistic new Pudong International (you get there on a magnetic levitation train at 450 kph, for pete's sake) and AA's terminal 7 - complete with stained acoustical tile, signage dating from whenever it was that chocolate brown was considered a fresh color, and 20 minute wait for luggage - could not be more stark or depressing. Oh yeah, and can I ask why this is the only country in the world where you have to pay for a luggage cart? What's next, pay restrooms? I was embarrassed to see several people on my JAL flight go over to a cart, tug on one, realize with amazement that they were expected to rent one for $3, and give up. Welcome to America.

On my recent domastic coast to coast flight on NW, what I was most missing was food. As I sat there contemplating the fact that I had spent an hour to get to the airport, another 2 hours at the airport going through security so I can spend 5 and half hours on the plain - not to mention another half hour waiting for luggage and yet another half hour traveling to my final destination, I realized I was hungry. From door to door I was spending about 9 hours in transit, withing nothing more then a soft drink to sustain me. As I sat there feeling hungry, I noted that the in flight tv screen were blank, they weren't even used for the safty instructions and the opening in my seat that had once intended for a complementary headset to listen to music or a movie had been filled in. So I sat there contemplating the technological marvel that is flight, while lamating the endless regressive march to ever less quality of life that are profit driven privately owned flights had brought us. But why complain, when adjusted for inflation my ticket is only 25% higher then was back in the days before regulaton. At least I know the airlines aren't getting any better a deal on their profits then I am on my ticket.

To those readers who question whether it is significant that no US airlines fly to Africa: yes, it is!

I fly to East Africa pretty regularly for work (two to three times a year). The planes are generally full. The flights almost always involve a layover in Europe (though you can dog-leg through the UAE, or go direct through Addis Ababa if you enjoy spending an eternity with the extremely cheap, friendly, and chronically-late Ethiopian Airlines). Whichever route you take, the trip between Dar es Salaam and New York always takes a minimum of 24 hours (that's with the smooth 3 hour connection in Amsterdam on KLM), and often takes more than 30.

A nonstop flight covering the same distance (6718 nautical miles) would probably take a mere 16 hours or so (it's about 850nm more than the NY-Tokyo route, which I've flown in about 14 hours, though I couldn't tell you anything about the comparative winds). You'd probably need to add on a couple of hours to Dar, because the plane would also stop in Nairobi on that route.

There are plenty of people flying between East Africa and the US, and plenty of people flying between other parts of Africa and the US. Certainly enough people make the trip to make various routes worthwhile between the US and Africa, at least a few times a week. However, almost all those people, except those who fly to South Africa (which is too far out of the way for trips to the rest of the continent), are forced to transit through Europe. What this means, in money terms, is that all of those passengers are paying 4-figure ticket prices (5-figures for first class) to European airlines, at least for the expensive south-bound portion of the flight. How many times has my money gone to KLM, BA, Air France, or another European carrier to fly me from my transit point on a continent I didn't even intend to visit? And usually, if I'm flying BA from London south, I'll be flying BA across the Atlantic as well, rather than switching to a US-flag carrier.

Every time I hop a European carrier to Africa, I am sending US$$ outside of the US, without having the option to keep that money within our economy, and I am wasting my own transit time as well. Put a few long-haul aircraft on some of the more lucrative routes between the US and Africa, and almost everyone flying between those points would abandon the European detour and gleefully hand their money over to the US airline.

Go on, Delta. New York to Nairobi to Dar, and back again. Try it - you won't be sorry!