Comfort and safety vs the hard sell

I recently had to take four flights, four flights too many. Well, I didn't have to take them, nobody forced me, but to get where I wanted to be it was the best option. As a kid I used to think travel was, or rather, must have been seeing as I'd never done it, very sophisticated. When I did eventually start travelling I'd turn up at the airport early because that was all part of the experience and worthy of enjoying in itself. I'd sit myself down in a swanky café and feel very self important as I sipped a coffee and watch the well dressed world pass by. Then there was the flight. The ever smiling, immaculately dressed cabin crew made me and all the other wannabe sophisticates feel comfortable and safe. We'd all flick through the in-flight magazine and rip open the goody bag of socks, face mask, headphones, fresh wipes and blanket, deciding what was worth slipping into our cabin bags. (Why did we all take those face masks home?)


Fast forward a couple of decades and it's a completely different story.


Firstly, booking a flight online is like a multiple choice exam in self preservation. Do I really want to fly through the night just to save the fifty euros? Do I pay more for extra leg room only to find everybody else who has done the same has children? Then there's paying in advance for a meal before you've seen a menu, but hey, I'll be hungry so better had. Lastly you have to decide how many bags you'll pay to have put in the hold. That's easy enough on the outbound flight, but usually a complete unknown on the return. Oh no, that wasn't the last "option", finally you get to the point of clicking "book flight" when a little window pops up and asks you if you'd like to pay to offset your carbon footprint. Screaming "NO" at the computer screen is pointless, childish and a complete waste of time, but it sometimes helps.

I stopped turning up early at the airport a long time ago. Once you've checked in and gone through security you want to spend as little time as possible in "Departures". The swanky cafés have gone, replaced by the big name coffee shops you can find on any corner of this global village. When you do find somewhere to sit your coffee is served in a polystyrene cup with a plastic spoon. I once asked a waiter in an airport coffee shop why I couldn't have a proper cup and a real spoon and was told, "it was for my own safety." I had no idea I was putting myself at risk every time I drank a cup of coffee outside an airport, I'd better check the small print on my life insurance. As for watching the world pass by, it's downright depressing. I couldn't help but notice everybody looked apprehensive, slightly nervous and paranoid. Tempers were short, queues were long and everybody wanted to pass through this slice of nowhere as quickly as possible.

The cabin crew still smiled as they walked along the aircraft aisle telling people "no you can't" but somehow the smiles were tired and well worn. They tried to sell us upgrades to better seats, food, drinks, duty free, lottery tickets, toys and headphones. At one point I asked if the air conditioning could be turned down seeing as we were all cold, I was tutted at, smiled to and ignored. An hour later I asked for a blanket and was told, "you can buy a comfort pack which includes a blanket and a pillow for €5." But the best sales pitch came as we were coming in to land at Luxor. We were asked if we wanted to buy bottles of water to take off the aircraft because "this was our last chance to buy English water." I think we'd landed before I managed to scrape my chin up off the floor!