A Flight to Remember

Unless you’re prepared to put yourself to significant extra expense and hassle, then getting to your chosen destination in EU Land inevitably means using the nearest regional airport and whichever ‘budget’ airline flies from there. Sadly, up North these days there Is usually no other choice.

Here up North, unless prepared to endure the hell that is Manchester Airport with seemingly five-mile hikes to the departure gates, our operational (but for how long?) local airports, despite frequent modernisations, somehow still seem to resemble the local bus station with a few runways attached. Yes, I’m talking about those slippery metal seats, abandoned water bottles, and sad looking mini branches of WH Smith and Boots.

However unappealing the likes of Leeds-Bradford Airport are, the real ‘joy’ of travelling by air from up North isn’t the broadening of the mind, but instead observing one’s fellow travellers. Call me a snob by all means, it’s well deserved, but let’s for a moment consider the typical traveller types encountered (perhaps in the husky tones of St. David of Attenborough, but obviously minus his climate emergency delusions).

Hen and Stag parties in matching T shirts and/or hats; surprisingly of late these seem rather better behaved and largely sober, yet still naturally look a bit dated. Who still thinks this is a good idea? Perhaps it’s a sophisticated post-modern homage to the 1980s?

Elderly gentlemen, who until relatively recently would have worn a suit and tie, beige safari suit or at least a blazer with a crest on the breast pocket; these are now all but extinct and have evolved into an unconvincing Euro-Ponce species. Slacks, wrinkly white linen shirt, tasseled loafers with no socks showing and a pastel coloured cardigan or sweater, not worn but tied casually around the shoulders. A Panama hat often completes ‘the look’. Their wives typically look dowdy with no similarly misguided attempt to look chic.

Fat, and I mean really, really fat, lasses (of all ages) wearing teeny-tiny clothing presumably designed for significantly smaller girls. Bare midriffs are sadly an unavoidable gelatinous ‘treat’ that draw the eye, just like the moving eyes in a horror film portrait.

Sports attire-outfitted travellers of all ages and sexes, bedecked in the latest Premier League nylon shirt, joggers, baseball cap and pristine white trainers (although white sock and slider combos, once only the preserve of Eastern Europeans, are now much in evidence). Bling-Bling jewellery is often proudly displayed. Hardly any members of this tribe look as though they are physically capable of any more strenuous sporting activity than holding a TV remote control.

It might be freezing or pouring with rain outside, but many of both sexes will have decided to already opt for shorts, vests and flip flops in anticipation of their destination heat (even if their flight doesn’t arrive until after midnight).

Family groups, sometimes large and multigenerational, typically all wear variations of the same outfits, with the boys often sporting haircuts that surely would be banned from any classroom. These family groups are particularly noisy, the children noticeably undisciplined and (the saddest thing in the English language) all too often addressed as ‘mate’ by their father. These delightful offspring are indeed surrogate ‘mates’ as they are not subjected to a 1960s/70s ‘you’ll have what you’re given’ parental regime or indeed any discipline whatsoever, but allowed to run riot and indulged with ‘what do you want from X?’ outlet. Since all the airport shops plus food and drink outlets are grossly overpriced, one wonders how the family can afford such extravagance, what with the cost of the ‘all-inclusive’ holiday beano and probable school fines for taking term-time holidays.

It’s a rare sight these days (and one which would surely get bonus points in an I-Spy book) to observe anyone reading a real book, but instead 99.9% seem indelibly glued to their mobile screen and oblivious to anything except what they are frantically scrolling or whatever is coming through their wireless earbuds or oversized headphones. Also, no matter what the time or duration of the flight, most travellers still cling desperately to the comfort blanket of their beloved personal neck pillow.

It goes without saying, appearances suggest that the tattoo parlour was offering a ‘ten for the price of one’ deal that 95% of travellers just couldn’t resist. Ditto the nail parlour.

As if that’s not all bad enough, take actually boarding the plane. In a logical world travellers would be pre-herded into small sequential seat numbered cohorts and told to get into their seat immediately once they get onto the plane, not to dither when stowing their onboard luggage or show ineptitude by failing to grasp the logic of  clearly numbered and lettered seats. Once luggage stowed, fat arse squeezed into uncomfortable seat and seat belt fastened, is it really necessary to still keep moving about, endlessly fiddling with stuff in the overhead lockers and surreptitiously trying to change allotted seats without the eagle-eyed trolley dollies noticing?

The boarding musak and pre-recorded overly cheery announcements are vomit inducing, as are the live announcements with their inherent smack of desperation to still flog things like extra leg room seats and the overpriced, yet apparently essential for most, ‘delicious’ catering fayre (pot noodles at £3.50 are a steal when compared to the three for £1 in most Northern shops!). Never fail to be aroused from your uncomfortable attempted slumbers by the hard sell for unnecessary duty free goodies and the secrecy now involved in the pricing of the onboard evil tobacco products.

Expect for the duration of the flight three things: certain passengers using the loos more times than you’ll be doing whilst on a week’s holiday, an uncontrolled child screaming, shouting and kicking the back of your seat while the parents obliviously watch an action film on their tablet, and people who simply must stand in the aisle and talk to those they probably only just met at the airport, thereby holding up the trolley service (and the aforementioned weak bladder brigade). You long for some turbulence just to curtail movements, although this never deters the child behind you.

You’ll know you’ve reached rock bottom socially when the plane lands and some oiks applaud, cheer and wolf-whistle. This is also a sure sign you’ll probably next be stuck trying to disembark for another thirty minutes, or more, while almost everyone desperately consults their mobile (for what?) and loudly calls Grandma to tell her they’ve just landed but are still on the plane, blocking your neck-cricked attempt to leave your seat, retrieve your baggage and get into the aisle.

Passport control is a nightmare for anyone not at the very front of the queue, as people don’t move forward because they are far too busy scrolling through Facebook (or similar), but will get shirty if you pop into the widening gap they themselves apparently aren’t interested in filling. By the way, tripping over a child’s ‘trunkie’ here is almost inevitable. Does anyone think the new automated Euro Visa and Passport checking machines will make this quicker? I predict airport rage incidents, remember TNC’ers you read it here first.

Finally, you escape from the destination airport, but already with thoughts of the return journey; a cloud hanging over your holiday.

Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.

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