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.