A regular on the Dublin-Malaga run, Kevin O'Connorwonders if Ryanair's bid for Aer Lingus means the end of air travel as he knows it
IF YOU'RE a male of a certain age, being cosseted early in the morning is one of the pleasures of life. If you're an air traveller, the next best thing to home comforts is the breakfast that's available on the dawn run from Dublin to Malaga, the full Irish served with the kind of care that makes tetchy men melt like butter on hot toast.
Cabin crew must track the declining trajectory of angst levels, especially the high velocity that goes with getting out of Dublin Airport. Once breakfast is served, passengers relax on masse. "Growling bears become purring pussycats," as an Aer Lingus attendant said.
Am I going to lose all this? If Ryanair takes over Aer Lingus, will it be the end of caring cheerfulness - and all the other attributes of survival that Aer Lingus has nurtured over its generations of pride in being Irish? I ask only because, in a rare declaration of self-interest, what appears just another business story may make my life the poorer. And, no, I'm not an Aer Lingus shareholder.
Most seasoned travellers have their Ryanair horror story. If you dare to be politically incorrect and frighten the kids this Christmas, do a straw poll of your friends. And like a good scout, be prepared for the worst.
Much of what you hear will be unprintable in a family newspaper, especially if you've had the bad luck to be on a Ryanair flight in the company of a crowd of raucous Dubs. To hear the grown men talk like sexually ignorant schoolboys and swap swagger of what they "give" the working girls in Amsterdam or Hamburg is to, well, cower in your seat and wish the flight was over.
Because - and this is the nub of it - Ryanair seems unable to impose good travel manners on groups of men who've had a few scoops too many in the bar before boarding. Or on a couple who changed their baby's nappy on my table top when it crapped on mammy's lap. Or on the haranguing set of drunken Dubs who threatened passengers at London Stansted "to shut the f**k up" when they asked them to cool it. Or that time out of Malaga when . . . but you will have your own version. As I say, ask around and you will have a Ryanair anthology for Christmas.
Maybe it's a staffing deficit, but more likely it's the attitude of pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap, the operational mantra of low-budget airlines. And, yes, I know all about the national pride one is supposed to have in "the little Irish airline which took on the world".
And, yes, I know too that one's notional socialism is tested - and diluted - by the too-close behaviour of humanity in packed-in Ryanair. One is supposed to applaud how it made air travel possible for migrant workers across Europe, especially after the collapse of the one system that tried - and utterly failed - to effect that political philosophy.
Yes, yes, I know I should not be having all these bad thoughts about Mick the Mouth. Any more than I should be precious about my breakfast on the Malaga run on a Monday. I know it's precipitous to imagine that Michael O'Leary could ruin Aer Lingus, like a marauding barbarian, importing chunky cabin crew with shaved heads (men) and overlong sleeves and ill-fitting skirts (women).
I should probably get out a bit more, and keep taking the tablets. Then I might relieve my angst with the optimism that all change is for the greater good; that, like a good marriage, the best bits of Ryanair and Aer Lingus will rub off on each other.
As long as I get my full breakfast on the way to Malaga, should I care if it comes with a scowl or a smile? Or whether I'm travelling on a smooth Airbus or boosting Boeing? Or, indeed, should I care very much at all, as long as I get there in one piece with just tolerable hassle?
There's the rub. If Ryanair takes over Aer Lingus, going on the graphic accounts in my own Ryanair anthology, it could mean intolerable hassle. The end of air travel as I know it?