BETTER TO ARRIVE THAN TRAVEL?

Over recent years, I`ve been to quite a few airports - Stanstead, Heathrow, the new Heathrow Terminal 5 and Gatwick South. I`ve been going there either to collect or deliver my Hamburg based son and his family. I`ve never actually flown anywhere myself for quite a few years now, but I have become something of an experienced observer of those who do.

And yesterday I made yet another in my long line of deliveries to Gatwick, when our visitors were due to fly back to Hamburg having spent some time with us. I`m not sure I get on terribly well with airports. There`s the extortionate car parking charge of £5 for the first hour....and here`s me moaning last week about paying £3.50 to park at Daymer Bay in Cornwall for a whole day. Then there`s the enormous queue to check in and sort out the baggage, then the check to see if you`ve got any lipstick, fluids or other dubious stuff that needs to be left behind in little sealed plastic bags. Then there`s the endless security checks which my son tells me even involve our two grandsons (9 and 7) being stripped down with their shoes and socks removed. (Knowing my grandson as I do, maybe they do, after all, pose a security threat.) Then there`s the general `demeanour` of the actual passengers, whether they be boarding or alighting. They seem to be in a daze, as if transfixed in their own bewilderment as they subject themselves to the series of challenges that face them in their attempts to get anywhere. And I haven`t even mentioned immigration control or customs or men holding up cards with people`s names on or the extraordinary Costa coffees with their hyped up price tags and their bottomless mugs.

My son`s flight was delayed for a couple of hours, courtesy of a strike by French air traffic controllers, which I suppose makes a change from the assorted strikes regularly called by British ATCs, baggage handlers, etc. All of which suggests that the usual notion that it`s better to travel than to arrive might be out of date at least where air travel is concerned. My last flight was, I think, to Lisbon 16 years ago and the subsequent years of just observing the comings and goings at UK airports probably means that I won`t be bothering again any time soon. Anyway, my passport ran out years ago.