Told that story before, upthread. I had two veteran military pilots in my small village. One was an helicopter buff, the other classic light aviation. Flew with both - Alouette II and then Robin DR-400. The second one was a nut, flying low over the village houses, including mine.
When he was grounded with heart issues he just went ultra light aviation and kept going. My mother and I assumed that someday he would pull an involuntary 9-11 in one of the village houses, yet last time I heard he is still alive and kicking. Still flying past 80.
Also flew as passenger onboard A330 bound to La Réunion island. So, if you don't live in Paris yet have (step)family in La Réunion, you end screwed thrice.
- It is Paris or burst - or either high speed train or a short haul flight, to Paris
- then for some reason I can't explain, those Paris - Saint Denis de La Réunion flight are only night flights.
I mean, you get in the plane at 10 in the evening to land 12 hours later - in broad daylight, at 8 in the morning.
- so you haven't slept at all, and as soon as you exit the plane, you take 35°C and 90% humidity right in your face. Even more since air conditioning at the airport usually capitulates.
We did that with a 2.5 year old kid late 2016. You guess it didn't went well. He staunchly refused to sleep until Madagascar (or close, down under Africa), to the great delight of the 250 other human bodies piled in the goddam A330. And then we looked through the window, daylight had came back, and the kid was asleep. We landed one hour later.
The next time in 2018 we went by train to Paris. In front of us was a young student very recognizable as an inhabitant from La Réunion (typical mixed beauty) returning from exile. (they have 30%+ young unemployement rates in the island, so exile to Metropolitan France is mandatory).
And surely enough, she boarded the same plane and ended also in front of us. So, in a nutshell, she had to endure our ...agitated kid all the way from Bordeaux to Paris to La Réunion, something akin to 16 hours not counting the train to airport transit time. Hail the joy of computer booking filling train and aircraft according to rational computer logic...