Luxury is lost in clouds

we waited and what seemed almost like first-class service on board airliners offering spacious accommodation and short flights. A 24-hour exhausting marathon was transformed into a two-hour luxury trip.

Even my flights to Cyprus and back during my national service in the 1950s were a welcome contrast to barrack life with the soft plane seats and ample leg room. We squaddies even had excellent meals served to us on board.

In recent years, however, more and more people – especially the elderly – are choosing sea travel over air travel, mainly because their treatment is more civilised, food and entertainment on board is better and because cruising is seen as safer, particularly since terrorist attacks have added to the normal risks of flying.

Even before the recent spate of terrorist attacks, the flying experience had deteriorated immensely. Less comfortable seats and more restricted leg room had transformed air journeys into endurance tests.

Airports are worse. Passengers have been treated more and more like cattle. Even before the terrorist threat, check-in, customs and passport queues were painful experiences. Since terrorism reared its ugly head, airports have become a form of torture. Passengers stand for hours in queues, then have to walk for what seems miles along endless corridors to the planes, carrying their hand-luggage with them.

Once, in a Greek airport, I thought I was going to be arrested by a Gestapo-like female official because a nail file had slipped unnoticed into the lining of a toilet bag in my hand luggage.

What has happened to air travel? George K McMillan Mount Tabor Avenue Perth