Does airline travel really need to be so terrible in 2025?
I was sitting in my cramped little window seat on board a Ryanair flight, anxiously rubbing the Saint Christopher around my neck, when the apologetic pilot announced to passengers that we might be stuck on the tarmac for several hours waiting for a slot due to airspace capacity restrictions. Flying is a privilege, I remind myself. But it sure doesn't feel like an honour these days.
Between the illusion of low-cost ticket prices based on the infuriating strategy of 'unbundling' to the industrial action-inducing conditions for aviation workers across Europe and the UK, has flying ever been this bad?
French air traffic controllers were not the only workers taking strike action this month. In Finland, industrial action rocked Finnair and Helsinki Airport across several days in a dispute over wages (some dates have since been called off). Across Italy, baggage handlers at several Italian airports took part in a 24-hour strike on July 10. Workers at a clutch of other airports in Italy took part in separate strikes around the same time. Spanish airline and airport workers also went on strike. July 26 should be a fun day to travel as Spanish and Italian aviation strikes coincide with the last day of a walkout by around 100 Glasgow Airport workers.
Needless to say, this summer has seen record disruption with hundreds of flights cancelled and tens of thousands of passengers impacted. A huge part of the problem is that demand is back to pre-pandemic levels, but staffing levels are not. Budget cuts during Covid, coupled with stalls in training across parts of the aviation industry, have put pressure on everyone from baggage handlers and air traffic controllers to airport ambassadors, support officers and more. Then there is the squeeze on airspace over Europe caused by the war in Ukraine. Conflict in the Middle East has also led to hundreds of cancellations.
As a passenger daring to go on vacation in the summer, these sorts of delays and cancellations are to be expected nowadays. And they are mostly out of the control of airlines. Industrial action on the ground is considered 'extraordinary circumstances', so airlines are not required to pay passengers compensation for any delays or cancellations caused by strikes.
Airlines have been pretty vocal about their dissatisfaction at having to cancel hundreds of journeys. EasyJet boss Kenton Jarvis said the airline was 'extremely unhappy' at the French ATC strikers. Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, accused French air traffic controllers of 'holding European families to ransom'.
Buckled up on the tarmac, I debate forking over more than a fiver for a pack of Pringles and a lukewarm Sprite during the agonising wait to take off. As excruciating as it is to spend hours in a parked Boeing 737 (hours that could be spent on the beach), the torture of travel begins the moment you try to purchase a flight from a budget airline. Further inconveniences, delays and cancellations do not feel out of place in a system that is broken thanks to a low-cost model that created an incredible race to the bottom.
July, for the obvious reason of demand, is not a cheap month to travel, even if you are flying with a budget airline. So, I pay a fare which only covers my bum in a seat that barely scrapes the minimum legal-size standard and try and figure out how I can pack everything I need into a little backpack. The size of which (40x20x25cm) is far smaller than the actual space beneath a seat. What the heck? I think. The airline describes this allowance as 'generous'.
For the honour of putting a bag in the overhead locker, you have to pay for priority boarding. It allows the airline staff to examine the shorter, non-priority queue and pick off holidaymakers with oversized bags one by one with ease. It's marketed as a system that is all about efficiency, but it doesn't exactly feel more efficient. It feels more like creating artificial scarcity by limiting how much space you and your things are allowed to take up. Last time I checked, the layout of the aeroplanes did not shrink and neither did the overhead lockers.
The unbundling model, which airlines say is good because it means people pay for what they want, is infuriating to me. There is little overlap with the policies of different airlines, confusion abounds, and as a nervous flyer anyway, the mounting fees at every turn are a never-ending source of jump scares.
Airlines once prided themselves on how wonderful the experience was. Now the whole process has been so dehumanised, broken by design and frustrating that it leaves me wondering just how bad things are really going to get before they start getting better. Air fares might be low, but they are still increasing. So are all of the ancillary charges.
As a customer, I am becoming less and less tolerant of being squeezed for every last penny before I've even landed. I look forward to travelling and taking time off work, and the first few hours of it are sometimes, if not always, completely ruined by the terrible state of air travel. Across the UK and Europe, we seem to be reaching a breaking point. If staff and passengers are the losers under the current system, who are the winners? Those who decided that air travel was a financial product and not a service. And I reckon those folk can afford to fly First Class.
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it's free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1
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