As an illustration of the quite barmy softness of the current UK London Media elite and sadly almost all the rest of us I quote below an item on Sunday 18th July from the web site of Iain Dale’s Diary.
He did not have to worry about connecting flights or awkward rail journeys to get home. Despite this, we have a cry of woe, thrice woe, below, about the desperate hardships of travel today. Yet he is travelling in comfort from Heraklion Airport in Crete, an island in the Eastern Mediterranean to England, crossing two seas and many mountains.
How long and how difficult might such a journey have been for earlier generations and at how much cost? For rather less than an average weekly wage he is winged around 1700 miles home in under half a day including a slight delay and a wait for the luggage. In 2010 the real cost is a fraction of that of 1980.
It is a marvel of commercial organisation and work, once an impossible dream. The way things are going it may soon become one again.
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Amateur Night Flight - Iain Dale 4:24 AM
It seems that the combination of Easyjet and the new operators of Gatwick Airport is a lethal one. And it's not an experience I shall be repeating in a hurry. Our flight back to Gatwick from Heraklion was supposed to take off at 11.15 last night. It took off at 1.30am.
When we got to Gatwick at 3.30 after a four hour flight we had to wait 20 minutes for buses. And now, at 4.30ish we have just been told that we will have to wait at least an hour and a half for our baggage, along with the other 8 Easyjet flights which have arrived late.
If we'd paid £20 for our flights you might think we ought not to complain, but they cost over £300 each. I've had better treatment in third world airports than this. The new operators of Gatwick Airport, whoever they are, ought to be ashamed of themselves. There. I feel better having got that off my chest.
Unquote
I wonder how Iain may have enjoyed spending quality time at Heraklion Airport in May 1941 with the 14th Infantry Brigade? It would certainly have been lively.
May I recommend he reads Evelyn Waugh’s Trilogy “Sword of Honour” Part 2 “Officers and Gentlemen”.
The character of Corporal-Major Ludovic comes to mind.
He did not have to worry about connecting flights or awkward rail journeys to get home. Despite this, we have a cry of woe, thrice woe, below, about the desperate hardships of travel today. Yet he is travelling in comfort from Heraklion Airport in Crete, an island in the Eastern Mediterranean to England, crossing two seas and many mountains.
How long and how difficult might such a journey have been for earlier generations and at how much cost? For rather less than an average weekly wage he is winged around 1700 miles home in under half a day including a slight delay and a wait for the luggage. In 2010 the real cost is a fraction of that of 1980.
It is a marvel of commercial organisation and work, once an impossible dream. The way things are going it may soon become one again.
Quote
Amateur Night Flight - Iain Dale 4:24 AM
It seems that the combination of Easyjet and the new operators of Gatwick Airport is a lethal one. And it's not an experience I shall be repeating in a hurry. Our flight back to Gatwick from Heraklion was supposed to take off at 11.15 last night. It took off at 1.30am.
When we got to Gatwick at 3.30 after a four hour flight we had to wait 20 minutes for buses. And now, at 4.30ish we have just been told that we will have to wait at least an hour and a half for our baggage, along with the other 8 Easyjet flights which have arrived late.
If we'd paid £20 for our flights you might think we ought not to complain, but they cost over £300 each. I've had better treatment in third world airports than this. The new operators of Gatwick Airport, whoever they are, ought to be ashamed of themselves. There. I feel better having got that off my chest.
Unquote
I wonder how Iain may have enjoyed spending quality time at Heraklion Airport in May 1941 with the 14th Infantry Brigade? It would certainly have been lively.
May I recommend he reads Evelyn Waugh’s Trilogy “Sword of Honour” Part 2 “Officers and Gentlemen”.
The character of Corporal-Major Ludovic comes to mind.
I spent many happy hours in this industry. It more often than not runs very smoothly. Hence when delays occur they are magnified by their rarity. As for Dale, join the real world, matey!
ReplyDeleteHeraklion airport -- one of the nicest airports I have ever slept on the floor in! It was a wonderful experience, made more delightful by the group of drunken Glaswegians who thought they'd invented swearing.
ReplyDeleteAnd poor Ian -- having to wait a whole 20 minutes for the buses. How he must have suffered, poor little diddums.
But they, he is a VILT (Very Important Little Twat), not a mouldy common person, like the rest of us.