On March 12, I was among 17 exhausted and agitated passengers flying from Paris to Tripoli on the French-piloted Afriqiyah Airways Flight 8U900 — exhausted because our flight should have left at noon the day before, agitated because we had spent the entire previous day at Charles de Gaulle before we were transported to a nearby hotel for the night.
All the passengers were Libyan except for three Frenchmen and one American businessman. Being a small group, we got acquainted quickly and talked about everything except politics, upon my request. I thought it would be best to avoid the topic.
