It’s 8am on a weekday at Edinburgh airport. I’m off to do some work in Budapest. I’ve already checked in and triumphed in the battle to print a sticky bag tag and adhere it to my luggage. I’ve got work material on my new iPad and a cortado coffee – a diminutive 150ml less-foamy cappuccino. I’m feeling quite the cosmopolitan dame.
Sipping, I observe the gate is getting jam-packed. It’s 90% blokes. ‘Stag trip on this flight,’ I text family members, adding a beer emoji.
More blokes arrive. Some are wearing green. They too carry beverages which are definitely not cortados. My text correspondents, after a swift search, advise me Celtic are playing a Budapest team. (I never did find out who, because Hungarian and spellcheck resulted in many opponents.) My heart sinks but not as fast as their pints.
People I know engage in a certain level of football enthusiasm, you see. News of victories over Denmark get a little air punch. During World Cup finals, we might attend a party. Club football doesn’t penetrate. Usually.
On board, I estimate there are 150 football fans. The back rows are the soul of the terraces; from there comes bellowing of Here We Go unmuffled by sagging masks. Before the seat-belt sign is off, fans pile into the aisle and hoof it to the privy.
We’re barely over Newcastle before the queue to use the toilet at the front of the aircraft extends to row 15 and the line for the lavatory in the rear stretches forward as far. The queues meet in the middle.
Thank God I had that dinky wee cortado I think. But I’m forced to abandon all work as my aisle-side elbow gets jogged whenever the queue moves up one. Or down one. Every jostle first selects then erases something on the iPad. I don’t even know how to do that.
I hope for altitude-based humour: ‘Are we actually over the moon?’ Oh no. Lots of other words though. We’re travelling Swear Air.
By the time we descend into Budapest, everyone has had a view: a window seat offered the north Hungarian Mountains; an aisle seat looked onto the upper slopes of Glaswegian bottoms bulging over jeans’ waistbands.
This happened a couple of weeks ago, and my worry is not for bygone games but the future of budget airlines. Here’s why. I fear such a flight will create a precedent. A precedent of passengers being willing to travel over Europe standing in a toilet queue. Carriers might think: ‘we don’t need seats. Take them out! Pack in more people!’ And if some travellers don’t fancy spending their entire flight in a loo line, they’ll have to purchase a literal seat. Like a stacking chair to unfold during cruise.
So, footie fans, by all means sing your anthems in the air. But to safeguard aviation standards, sup a cortado not a pint before a flight. There’s no need to create a Danube of lager on board. You’re going there.
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