Present Tense:There probably never was any "golden age of air travel". Planes have always been cramped. The food has always been ropey. There is no escape from screaming children, big-elbowed neighbours, stale air, stale passengers or piped Richard Clayderman, writes Shane Hegarty
When passengers could smoke, it was like travelling inside a subsonic bong. And for years it was the only mode of transport in which the opening minutes of a journey were spent being reminded of the many ways it might kill you.
But in comparison with now, the past does look like the golden age of air travel. Because this summer confirmed a growing suspicion: that flying has become a time-wasting, earth-destroying, head-wrecking, wallet-mugging, embolism-triggering grind.
The new era of air travel promised, famously, no frills, but to be cheap, quick, easy. Instead customers have been dragged into a lengthy battle with the airlines, in which they must be constantly vigilant against hidden charges, extra costs, bad service and empty promises of cheap fares. That in itself might have been enough to strip flying of its attractiveness, but coupled with the neurotic levels of security introduced in stages since 2001, how many people stood in airports this summer and wondered, even in the smallest way, whether it was really worth it any more?
It begins at home. Booking flights requires hunting down optional extras you never asked for. And because cheap tickets can be as common as the Yangtze dolphin, when you've paid €500 for a trip there's nothing to improve your mood more than an extra €8 charge for the privilege of transporting enough clothes to last the week - a charge ostensibly justified as a way of keeping the ticket price down. After which there are charges for priority boarding, choosing your seat, or for being inconvenient enough to require a wheelchair.
Many people now check their bags through in the first place because security precautions prohibit them from bringing a range of items on board. A tipping point came towards the end of last year, when the discovery of an alleged terrorist plot led to the rise of the clear plastic bag as an airport essential. Since 9/11, the security check had already become a headache, with people removing their shoes and unthreading their belts so that the queue resembled a slow-shuffling burlesque.
Now, the corner by every airport X-ray machine is littered with half-drunk bottles of water, along with sun creams and perfumes, while mothers must taste their baby's formula as a security officer waits to see if it will cause their lips to explode. It's as if we must place our dignity in the plastic tray before we can continue.
On it goes, through the penny-pilfering of the airport restaurants, on to the delayed aircraft, to the slow baggage carousel and lost luggage. It explains why the number of complaints by Irish passengers has risen sharply. One in five of the gripes directed to the European Consumer Centre's Dublin office are about air travel.
But this year brought a grander problem: the collective awareness that if you jet to Thailand, you might as well stop over in Norway and club a few seals. Flying squanders your hard-earned eco points, and there's no easy way of earning them back, because the carbon-offsetting business turns out to be an uncertain solution. The only answer is not to fly at all.
At first glance, we don't appear ready to do that. Ryanair carried 800,000 more passengers this August than it did in the same month of last year. That's 4,844,000 passengers in August alone; and 46,104,000 in the 12 months before it.
Yet, on average, one-fifth of Ryanair seats remain unfilled, meaning that its "load factor" is static. And as other airlines struggle with reduced profits and slipping share prices, the industry cannot afford passenger dissatisfaction to turn mutinous.
The US airlines have realised this. According to the Wall Street Journal this week, during peak times, airlines will hold empty seats to accommodate stranded passengers, add a few minutes to turnaround times and provide extra staff on the ground. It will cost money, but so do irate passengers, delayed flights and mislaid luggage. It is not a great altruistic endeavour, but it has the potential to provide some relief to passengers.
Here, the Government expects a doubling of passenger numbers at Dublin airport by 2030, while airlines will continue to do their best to squeeze extra minutes from the turnaround by squeezing extra cents from the passengers.
Meanwhile, environmentalists nag at us for indulging in our addiction to flying. Perhaps, as with smoking, the only solution is for it to become so inconvenient that it's just not worth doing any more. We're nowhere near that destination yet, but we may soon be on the way.
see also www.ireland.com/blogs/presenttense