It was with a certain degree of bemusement that I read recently of Ryanair's triumph in the Airline of the Year Awards organised by the Air Transport Users' Council.
On the day last month when Ryanair was receiving its award at a reception in Dublin, I was due to take a flight home to the capital with the said Airline of the Year. In my line of work, as industry and employment correspondent of this newspaper, confessing in public that I was prepared to fly with the Airline of the Year is a risky move.
Many of my most valuable trade union contacts are probably at this moment deleting my number from their mobile phones, incredulous that I could give my custom to an airline famed for its anti-union philosophy. I can only plead that, while I always look for an alternative, sometimes the Airline of the Year is the only viable option. As a long-suffering supporter of Leeds United, for example, I have no choice but to take the Airline of the Year when travelling to a match via Leeds/Bradford airport. (There goes my relationship with my remaining trade union contacts, Manchester United supporters all.) So, with my career in ruins, let me tell you about my experience at the hands of the Airline of the Year.
I was coming home after a short trip to Galicia in north-west Spain. Before leaving Dublin in the first place, I had already received my boarding passes for the homeward flights. The Airline of the Year had sent an e-mail inviting me to check in for the two flights involved, Santiago de Compostela to London Stansted, and Stansted to Dublin.
This is a simple procedure, though you have to answer some security questions online. So, before I had even begun my journey to Galicia, I declared that nobody had interfered with my bag on the way back and that nobody had asked me to carry anything on board. I am not making this up.
I was issued there and then with my boarding passes, both of which bore the number 1. To my great surprise, the first of my home-printed passes was accepted without a second glance by the security staff at Santiago airport. Better again, when it came to departure time, the holders of boarding passes numbers 1 and 2 were invited to board before everybody else - even before parents or guardians with young children. After years of antipathy, I was beginning to warm to the Airline of the Year.
I duly arrived at Stansted on schedule at 12.30pm, which was just about the time the Air Transport Users' Council was popping the champagne corks at the Conrad Hotel in honour of the Airline of the Year.
My flight to Dublin was not due to depart until 4pm, so I attempted to kill time by lingering over my lunch at Frankie & Bennys "New York-Italian family restaurant" in the departures area. As a dining experience, I am afraid it did justice to neither Italy nor New York, but who worries about a bad meal when a flight home beckons with the Airline of the Year? As departure time approached, all seemed well. The monitors instructed passengers on my flight to "go to gate". Next, they reported we were "boarding". Then, minutes before we were due to depart, things took a worrying turn. Our flight disappeared from the screens. It simply ceased to exist. The Airline of the Year, it soon become clear, did not have an aeroplane to hand to take us to Dublin.
A lesser airline - the runner-up in the Airline of the Year competition perhaps - might have sent a representative to inform us of the position. A still lesser one, perhaps the one that came third in the Airline of the Year awards, might have replaced the word "boarding" with the word "cancelled" on the monitor. But no, they have a more efficient way of doing things at the Airline of the Year. When you have a plane load of people but no plane, what do you do? At the Airline of the Year you press "delete". Problem solved!
I made my way back to the departures area in the hope of getting on the Airline of the Year's next flight to Dublin. When I got there, I discovered not merely a queue, nor even a scrum, at the Airline of the Year's ticket desk. Rather, there was a near terminal-full of angry-looking people waiting to speak to the harassed staff of the Airline of the Year.
It transpired that at least 70 flights to and from Stansted had been cancelled that day. Something to do with a failure of the runway lights the previous night, apparently. Whatever, I made a frantic assessment of my position. There was a bus to Heathrow Airport leaving in five minutes, I was informed. It was a 90-minute journey.
Taking my chances, I ran for the bus and, while en route to Heathrow, asked a friend at home to check the Aer Lingus website. Were there any seats available on that night's flights to Dublin? To my immense relief, a seat was booked there and then. I got there just in time for the flight, which left on schedule.
Say what you like about Aer Lingus. It may not be the Airline of the Year, but it got me home.