Airport chaos sends stress soaring to sky-high levels

Fiona finds flying is not the most relaxing way to travel as anxious passengers scramble to make their flights on time

Travel. It can leave you speechless – and it did. It can turn you into a story teller – and it has…

I write this in a plane. We are zooming into the clouds. The chief and I are going sky high – and so are stress levels.

Unless you have a private jet, this is not the most relaxing way to travel.

It is not the actual flight. It is everything that goes on before.

All that worry about luggage size and weight. All the toiletries that have to be squeezed into a small plastic bag.

There is the near strip-down at security as belts and shoes are ordered to be removed.

Then comes the inevitable pat-down after you go through the scanner. Very undignified.

All this, of course, is in the interests of safety. It is part of the modern air travel experience and I understand that.

It is par for the 21st Century course. Anxiety is to be expected and it must be tolerated.

But there is stress – and there is stress…

Arriving in good time at Edinburgh airport, we find the check-in system changed and the queues out of the door and along the pavement.

No matter. We comfort ourselves with the fact we have two hours to get through the scrum.

We wait in line but on reaching the counter the machine refuses to check in the chief’s bag. The computer just says “no”.

Which leaves those of us without a computer brain in a right muddle.

Behind us folk are agitated. They are muttering as if we should know better than to hold things up.

Eventually a human manager is summoned and he makes the computer say “yes”.

There is some brief relief and we hurry up the escalator for the next round of entertainment – the security.

Here a flashing sign advises us the waiting time is nine minutes. Half an hour later and we are barely inching towards our goal.

Children are wailing. Mothers look anxious. And a grown man weeps as it slowly dawns he may not get the flight that is meant to take him to relax on a foreign beach.

For our part, the MacGregor and I are heading somewhere rather less exotic. We are enroute to Southampton. But it still matters that we do not miss this plane.

We do get the flight. Just. Unlike some other unfortunate souls. I am advised we are the lucky ones...

We finally make it through the throng. Frantically pulling on shoes we charge along corridors, bumping into others who are also running, last-call announcements making us tremble.

We do get the flight. Just. Unlike some other unfortunate souls.

I am advised that we are the lucky ones. The previous day, the airport chaos was even worse.

It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”.

Jet-packed: while the flight itself may be fine, the whole experience can be draining.