From now on I’m hitting the road ... for my sanity

THE readers of consumer magazine Which? recently voted a budget airline — which for legal reasons I shall henceforth refer to as Cryin Air, on account of how its passengers have been seen weeping as they try to board its airlines – as the worst of 100 major consumer brands serving Britain and Ireland. That’s 100th out of 100. Epic fail.

The owner of Cryin Air, an individual, the spelling of whose name, when rearranged, is an anagram of I Hate You, was told by one private shareholder at the company’s AGM that he “had seen passengers crying at boarding gates.” Actually crying. And not because they were saying sad goodbyes – except to their dignity, sanity, and whatever cash they had on them, as staff gleefully fined them for some minor infringement of the airline’s screw-you rules. Can you think of any other major company that fines its customers like unruly school children, and has, until now, been getting away with it? Me neither.

Mr I Hate You has always taken the stance that the only thing passengers want are cheap tickets and punctual flights. Not so. Weighing and re-weighing your bag as obsessively as a seasoned drug mule, and being blasted throughout your knee-crunching economy flight to buy scratchcards and fake cigarettes does nothing to alleviate the general airport hassle of customs regarding your lipstick as a potential weapon of mass destruction. It’s not all about saving 50p. Or even a tenner.

Not that you save anything. If your bag is a millimetre too long, if your printer jams and you can’t print your own boarding pass, or if you are awkward enough to be a wheelchair user or have your entire family killed in a fire, you will pay in more ways than financially. You will suffer unnecessarily, lured in by the mistaken belief you are being economical.

Never cut corners with your sanity. As an Irish citizen resident in Britain, you have three choices when travelling between the two places. (a) Cryin Air (b) less unpleasant airlines or (c) driving. For some time now, I have opted for (b), and have never cried at boarding gates, been fined for having a bag that is 3mm too wide or 22 grams too heavy, or been deafened by minimum wage sky slaves trying to flog me inflight crap. I may not have saved myself a tenner, but the true savings – no jangling nerves, clenched jaw, tension headache, or aggression surges – have been priceless.

On my next visit, I plan on eliminating airlines entirely by opting for (c). By then Mr I Hate You may have addressed his airline’s appalling customer relations policy, but I will be peacefully meandering through beautiful landscapes, stopping wherever I please, without anyone shouting at me to buy a scratchcard.