Sir, - Aer Lingus, having overbooked an evening Shannon to Heathrow flight, generously offered me a flight voucher and a business-class seat if I would wait until next morning to complete my journey. After cheerfully dispensing with my economy-class ticket, I found myself sitting among the business classes as we winged our way to Heathrow.
At the age of 29, I was probably one of the oldest people in business class. I was impressed. In the three years since I have left Ireland, the country has done splendidly and it makes me very proud. I must say, however, it was more than a little humourless spending time with these Celtic tigers.
I found some passengers' attitude to the air staff to be unduly dismissive and condescending and any attempted conversations were merely a blatant attempt to impress on me how successful they really were. Our new-found economic success should bring out the best in people and we should be able to capitalise on our friendly, familiar, out-going image.
I really felt like going back to economy class. - Yours etc., James O. McInerney,
Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7.