Here’s the irony of it all: some of the deepest conversations, some the most sublime encounters you’ll ever have are with people you’ll probably never see again, people you meet while traveling.

On a flight from Atlanta to Washington, DC in the mid-1980s, I was seated in the first row of coach seats, right behind the divider from first class. As I was reading, someone stuck their hand in my face and said, in a familiar soft drawl, “Hi, I’m Jimmy Carter. Juts wanted to say hello.”

I was dumbstruck. The former president of the United States was making the rounds on the half-full flight, just greeting passengers. When Carter returned to his seat, it was the one just in front of mine. I peeked around the divider, his face no more than two feet away, as he pressed his nose against the glass, chin in hand.

We were landing at what was then Washington National Airport (DCA). I could see Carter’s eye’s narrow as the nation’s capital passed before him – it was one of the most profoundly intimate glimpses of another human being I’ve ever beheld.

Air travel can indeed be like that – the profoundly personal impersonality about it. What’s fascinating is the fact that, often as not, names are never exchanged in these encounters. That’s part of what allows you each to delve as deep, share as much. Its’ part of the code.

Next time you fly, unplug the iPod, turn off the seat-back TV and get to know the person with whom you, literally, will rub elbows for the next couple of hours. What you learn, about yourself and the world we all in habit just might amaze you.

© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler