Air support

The late Douglas Adams once pondered why it was that no language has yet produced the phrase: ‘As ugly as an airport’.

Of course, this was in the days before the British Airports Authority employed fashionable architects to design its terminals! But Adams was not just talking about aesthetics. The airportexperience, in spite of soaring new atriums, walls of glass and luxury carpet, can still, at times, be very ugly indeed — so his question remains pertinent.

Even if the architect was given a knighthood for the pleasing look of an airport — delays, strikes, bomb scares and other problems associated with getting a large number of people through check-in, passport control, security and then on to the right aircraft (and doing the same thing with their luggage) will still inspire a degree of dread in every traveller.

And with ever-increasing numbers of people wishing to fly, the things that can turn airports into nightmares are getting bigger and more frightening.