Paul Karl Lukacs is blogging about his trip to North Korea. I find his Air Koryo flight from Beijing especially interesting, having heard plenty of stories before but never having flown the airline myself.

The plane to Pyongyang was an Ilyushin 62-M, built by the Soviet Union in 1979 and kitted like a set from The Spy Who Loved Me. No cool corporate off-white here. The surprisingly comfortable economy seats were covered in puke green cloth upholstery with an indistinct pink pattern. The cabin’s interior shell was cast in a shade of beige which belonged in a Southern California ranch house from the era of earth tones. The plastic window shades were not opaque but a dark translucent brown.

Read the whole thing…