Safi Airways’ in-flight magazine is not the neutered, quasi-brochure you’ve come to expect from the reading material in the pocket in front of you. The magazine is unafraid to note that the diving platforms at the Bibi Mahru swimming pool were “notorious as an execution spot” under the Taliban. Or that at one of the city’s luxury hotels, the “sheets are clean, view from the room is nice, and — after the suicide bombing that took place — security measures have been implemented.” Indeed, Christian Marks, the magazine’s “cheerfully blunt German editor,” who carries a Russian pistol under his jacket and brought Kabul’s airwaves economic-development-themed soap operas, sounds like such a character that he seems ripe for a Hollywood treatment. We picture a cross between The People vs. Larry Flynt, Syriana, and The Men Who Stare at Goats. “It’s not only bombing, and it’s not only terrorists around,” Marks tells the Journal. “I lived long enough there to know you can go out every evening. If you go to the French restaurant, you can drink champagne and eat foie gras.” First, we were thinking George Clooney, but with the German accent and the luxury tastes, our money’s on Robert Downey Jr.
An Airline Magazine That Makes Travelers Want to Pull the Rip Cord [WSJ]