In My View: Flying is never plain sailing for me

I look forward to my annual summer holiday a lot, but, as I have written many times before, the build up to getting there not so much.

My experiences of airports home and abroad has never been good, but after watching what happened to the bloke on United Airlines in Chicago should really consider that, so far at least, I’ve never really had anything to seriously complain about.

One time, I did have a potentially catastrophic face off with a member of the airline I was intending to fly to America with.

This super efficient hired help took objection to me objecting to his demand I open my carry-on shoulder bag for inspection – again.

I was already a bit touchy feely about the process, which had been carried out twice before in other areas of the terminal. I had also co-operated fully earlier with the request to remove my shoes and belt for inspection and quietly assumed the position for the scanner and body shake down that followed.

When I got to this jobsworth’s desk I had more or less exhausted my feel good factor for the day and I think my body language told him he could take advantage.

My wife was mortified, and I got the feeling that me and the queue behind me were not going to be best pals on the flight, but there we were, two adults staring each other down about opening a holdall or not.

I complied in the end of course, then had eight hours across the pond to fume about it – but at least I had a seat!