This time when I travelled from Muscat to Mumbai, I had a very strange experience. The whole flight was full, hubby had told me that the flight was overbooked and there would be some upgrades from economy to business so I should better reach airport early and finish my check-in formalities since mine was a staff ticket.

On reaching the airport all the formalities got completed very fast including the security, so I straight away went to the gate. To my surprise every single passenger on the flight was a Haj passenger. I was the only single odd one out. For a while I was confused that was I on the right gate. There was a lot of chaos at the gate people were shouting from one end to another and I was wondering what is really happening here. Am I at the airport or at a market...haha. Even at the washrooms, anyone was using anything.

I was the only non-haj passenger on this flight and the only booked person in business class. As I boarded the aircraft I got to know that they had upgraded some of the passengers from economy to business and every single seat on the flight was occupied. They had upgraded all the overbooked passengers. Next to me an old lady was seated. It was her first time flying and she was very amused with the whole experience.

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She kept on asking me questions and I was happy to answer her back. She was a very sweet person and I was really charmed by her simplicity. At one time looking out of the window during the flying, she asked me is this the Sea that we can see. I laughed, told her, No it was the sky, we are flying above the clouds, then she also laughed, she was so naïve. She told me that this was the first time ever that she had gone anywhere even outside of her village. I was at the window, so then I asked her if she would like to sit at my seat but then she denied, so I took a video and showed her that we were flying above the clouds. The crew was also very kind to her, very patiently they were explaining her everything. While I was talking to her I also got to understand how important the trip of Hajj is for them and it is a very expensive trip also. People spend their life savings sometimes to do this trip. I felt a lot of respect for her. Honestly I just loved her, she was a very sweet person, she had some kind of magical vibe in her.

It really made me wonder that there are so many experiences of life which may be so common to some and so unique for some. And that's completely ok, there must be so much more in this world which even I would have not experienced and must be very common for some people.

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The only hassle on this flight was that the flight was completely full and most of the passengers were first time flight travelers so it was actually very chaotic for the crew. For the first time I felt how difficult their job is. Most of the passengers were flying first time and it was difficult to manage them. People would get out of their seats even when they were advised to sit during take-off and landings and then the crew had to shout at them. They would keep calling the crew every now and then. The lady next to me thankfully was a very calm person. She would feel too shy to ask for anything, even for a glass of water she was hesitant. As we landed, I could see how relieved the crew felt when everyone started getting out of the aircraft.

Honestly I have never seen so much chaos till date ever in any of my travels. I was feeling like I was in a very different zone on that flight. In my previous travels there have been Hajj passengers but there have been others also, but here it was only them.
It was a totally different flying experience for me.

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