Once you enter the air transportation system, you become a non – person, or as an airline pilot of my ken calls us, “walk – on” baggage. This is especially the case if you travel a long way in economy class. I have no knowledge of first class where whim – catering is the norm no doubt and cabin staff learn your name, your kids’ names and whether you like spinach or not. I’ve travelled Business Class on a few occasions – somebody else was paying –and that was good – especially in terms of that human essential – defensible space.

Economy doesn’t do defensible space. It features high – tech seats with all manner of video, film, music and news on a seat-back screen. These seats do not feature wriggle room. Or comfort if you’re over six foot and 17stone. I’m not especially fat, but economy seating arrangements welcome only those considerably smaller than me. For us biggies, elbow room on inside seats doesn’t exist. It does on an aisle seat, but then invites the passing meals trollies to take your arm off. Sleep, apart from snatched minutes born of sheer exhaustion after twelve hours or so, is not possible.

This leads first to whistful regret as you excuse me your way to or from the loo and you scan the two hundred odd fellow but averagedly dimensioned travellers out to the world, mouths agape, and snoring at different levels of intensity. Then come jealous thoughts – especially about the diminutive types who have been allocated an emergency exit seat where you can actually stretch your legs out. But they choose not to ! THEY CURL UP IN THE SEAT !. After your third trip to the loo, somewhere over northern Pakistan, resentment is turning to hatred.

But thankfully, after 20-odd hours [it was an Australian trip] you are diverted by the necessity to fill in an immigration card, carefully printed in microscopic typeface and needing to know if you’ve set foot on agricultural land in the last seven years. This task is usually carried out as the ‘plane descends into Sydney through different layers of turbulence.

Then its all over. You totter off, past beaming cabin staff, some of whom have the brass neck to ask you if you’ve had a comfortable flight. And you say yes, thankyou. One of these days, I’ll tell the truth – no, it was bloody awful. Why not ditch all the electronic gew – gaws in the seats ? It’d created more space……….etc. But I know the answer to that. Nobody under 5 foot 7 or 8 has a problem. Besides, more space would mean more seats. If Ryanair did long – haul, they’d make you stand up.