Brexit is on the way but mustn’t clip our wings
SIPPING a Buck’s Fizz for breakfast, I glanced down at the Alps and confirmed Ian Fleming’s claim in a James Bond short story that the mountain range looks like an elephant’s hide when viewed from 35,000ft.
This was my first foreign holiday as an adult, flying with Air 2000 when the year 2000 was still far enough ahead to have a futuristic cachet.
It would be years yet before I learned that ‘complimentary’ cocktail and the subsequent meal served as we coasted down Italy’s Adriatic seaboard were anything but free. They cost a fortune.
A couple of decades on, I was glancing down at my home town of Stranraer on a twice-weekly commute between Scotland and Ireland while working for the Mail in Dublin.
Champagne? Ryanair sold Bullseye Baggies then, a double whisky, rum or vodka in a plastic sachet. Ditching bottles saved weight.
And over years of this short hop – it was like going over a hump-back bridge – I grew fond of Ryanair’s punctuality and rock-bottom fares and came to admire its abrasive chief, Michael O’Leary.
Now it’s fashionable for the snooty to deride Ryanair, with its scratchcards and notorious customer service.
IGOT to know the cabin crew, many of them Eastern Europeans with an admirable work ethic. And scratch the surface of those ‘Ryanair are swine’ stories and you find what’s usually happened is that the passenger concerned has broken the rules. One piece of carry-on luggage? If you tried to sneak on two, whose fault was it that you were in a spat at the departure gate?
Gobby O’Leary is in the news again, threatening to dash holidays by grounding his Boeings after Brexit. I don’t believe a word. O’Leary is as sharp a showman as he is a businessman and this showboating can be filed in the bin alongside his plan to fit coin-operated doors on the aircraft toilets.
Short-term he may be concerned about the regulatory impact of Brexit, though there is a more serious long-term issue we all must consider.
This week, German and Dutch friends of mine both commented on the Royal Mint’s A-Z coins, saying the ‘full English’ 10p was a harbinger of a nation looking inward, seeking comfort in the familiar. Is it a sign that Britain is becoming isolated? Is Brexit really about pulling up the jetbridge and hunkering down on our wee island? Will we swap Ryanair flights to Bydgoszcz for weekends in Bognor or Braemar?
I’ve been to New Zealand and Iceland, places you might imagine would be insular thanks to geography. Quite the opposite. Rarely have I met people as well-travelled and as well-informed about the rest of the world.
And that’s how we must be after Brexit. I fully expect to continue driving a German car and enjoying Italian lager and French wine.
And, relax Mr O’Leary. I want my children to keep travelling everywhere from Aarhus to Zaragoza on your jets. So what if they need a visa? I’d be more worried about them getting their drinks out of plastic bags, not proper bottles.