Sometimes high f lying is simply not worth it
BY modern standards, I’m not very well-travelled at all. There was no such thing as a backpacking gap year in my day. Nor, for whatever reason, did I catch up on overseas travel as much as I would have liked in the subsequent years. Come to think of it, I was already the wrong side of 30 when I first visited the States.
I’m possibly unique among my peer group in having only been on Spanish soil once in my life and, even then, that was only for a disastrous stag weekend in Barcelona. Even when it comes to the two countries where I’ve holidayed most often, France and Italy, there are vast tracts of land that remain virgin territory to me.
Thanks to the SSIA windfall, I did manage to go on safari in Kenya ten years ago. But I have never been to Asia or Australia and, at this stage of the game, that is unlikely to change.
This has far less to do with my advancing years, mind you, than the fact that air travel has become such an unpleasant business. Even though I wasn’t going there as a passenger back then, I used to love visiting Dublin Airport as a kid when various extended family members were departing or arriving.
But the apparent glamour of those days is very much a thing of the past. Going through security on the way out and immigration control on the return leg both seem like an endurance test these days. So does boarding and practically everything else associated with the entire process.
No doubt it is all very different if you happen to be travelling in the pointy end of the plane, but unfortunately my experience on that front is limited as well.
Granted, I once went to Paris and back on Concorde in the company of some other gentlemen and ladies of the press.
Apart from that, though, I’ve only had the briefest and most fleeting taster of what it is like to fly like a member of the jet set.
About 15 years ago, I was returning from Washington DC after covering the annual pilgrimage by Bertie Ahern – then the taoiseach – to the White House for the St Patrick’s celebrations. I seem to recall being completely knackered due to the fatal combination of having had not a lot of work to do and far too much time for carousing. The angels were smiling on me at the check-in desk at Dulles Airport, however, and I was upgraded to business class.
At this remove in time, I can remember appreciating the extra legroom and the steak dinner that came with a half-bottle of very pleasant red wine. But my main recollection is that the in-flight movie wouldn’t play on the seat-back screen in front of me and, due to my status as an interloper in the posh pews, I didn’t really feel like I could complain.
The only other time I was upgraded was a few years earlier when myself and my new wife were off on honeymoon to the Amalfi Coast. I’ll never forget the chap from the ground crew explaining that he had good news and bad news.
The good news was that he could put us in first class; the bad news was that we couldn’t sit together. My initial instinct was to say that he could send us to separate destinations if he liked, once we could both sit within spitting distance of the cockpit. Being an old romantic, however, I kept that thought to myself.
Even now, I can recall how we were barely in our seats before the stewardesses started forcing glasses of bubbled beverages upon us. And, no, it wasn’t red lemonade from Taylor Keith or Savage Smith.
The only reason I mention any of this is that first-class travel seems to have moved up a notch or two. According to at least one newspaper report at the weekend, facilities on some airlines now include private cabins, double beds, personal showers and food prepared by Michelinstarred chefs.
Needless to say, none of this comes cheap. Round trips on some routes are now costing up to €27,000.
Regardless of how wealthy they are, the sort of person who shells out upwards of 20 grand for an aeroplane ticket is not an individual I’d like to be sitting beside on a longhaul flight. We’re talking here about the kind of vulgar punter who chooses to live in a gaff with bath taps made from solid gold.
Personally, I’d prefer to take my chances in the cheap seats among the raucous hen party groups and the travelling soccer fans. Aside from anything else, you meet a better class of person there.