Frequent Flyers

This week I was the volunteer to assist in the classified pouch run. Every so often the embassy sends and receives a batch of classified material. This requires some American officers with security clearances to go out to the airport and meet with a Diplomatic Courier who arrives with the incoming and departs with the outgoing.

For the right person, being a Diplomatic Courier could be a really interesting job. I doubt anyone in the Foreign Service travels as much as these guys. On the other hand, I don’t know how often they get to see the places they travel to. The courier I met was literally in Kyiv for about 45 minutes and never left the tarmac. He told me he’d been in St. Petersburg just the day before for what was probably a similar experience.

Still, the couriers get to keep all of the frequent flyer miles they earn and those most add up quickly and provide all sorts of travel opportunities during their free time.