Airline passenger news and views

It is true that travel has become a chore. Everywhere you try to go there are things that do not work or people who make life more difficult.

I flew into Gatwick on Monday and there was a long queue for passport control. The queue snaked through the building site that has been there for ages and never seems to get finished.

Eventually I get almost to the end of the queue (there are only two desks operating) and the family in front of me get pulled aside, presumably for further checks. When I say pulled aside, I mean taken aside by the desk woman - so there is now no one at the desk and my queue just stops. The other queue is moving slowly but then the woman comes back and speaks to the man on that desk and so we all stop and wait.

Is this really the best we can do? Where are all the Border Agency staff that we hear about?

I used to travel with my husband went he went on business. We used to pay for my flight but his company picked up the hotel as it did not cost anymore for two than for one. It was like a perk of the job. Now, when he says that he is going, unless it is somewhere really exciting that we have not been before, I just do not bother - how sad is that?

It used to be fun, now it is a pain. Well done the travel industry and the terrorists.

I hate travel too, last year I went backpacking around the world and spent most of my time waiting around in airports trying to get to my various destinations....I could of probably bagged an extra week in the time it took to get through passport control....being young is not always what its cracked up to be!

Modern travel is hard. I do not know so much about air travel but I use trains and the road all of the time and even that is hard work. People have learned to put up with bad conditions and so the conditions seem to get progressively worse.

I stood on a railway station last week. The train was delayed and no one knew why or when it would come. There was no information and the staff were hopeless. The sad thing is that people just put up with it and so nothing actually gets done.

We heard this same story with the ash delays. The main complaint was a complete lack of information and any coordinated response to the problem.

Catriona Wells has hit the nail on the head. We now live in an overcrowed island where manners and respect for others has been lost. We used to know how to behave and be responsible - now we see people putting themselves first, pushing and shoving, being rude and uncaring. It happens in all walks of life but travel seems to bring out the worst.

I agree, a few years back I was a little late for a flight being stuck in traffic. The airport staff treated me appallingly, as I held up the flight. I paid full price for a ticket and still deserved a polite service.

The vast majority of airport staff are rude, miserable and stressed, it brings you down a bit when you are excited and eagerly anticipating a once a year holiday abroad.

It is not just the airlines or even just travel - it is everything that one tries to do. In the past two days, I have had rows with BT and British Gas. Luckily, I am not flying BA (it would then be BA, BT and BG.

The UK travel industry is such a shambles; they focus on profits over service. Japan has got it right, a rail system that is always on time, very efficient why can't we have the same?

We used to have a rail system that worked. Both my Dad and Grandad reckon it was the best in the world and other countries modelled theirs on it. What happened? where is it now? They say that the government got rid of it to spend the money on motorways. Does anyone know about this and why it happened?

StaceyB mentions BT etc and dealing with utility companies generally. What is wrong with us? why do we put up with it? This is one thing that could make the new government really popular if they could sort it out.

I recently moved my gas from British Gas to OVO (who appear to be absolutely great by the way) but British Gas are still billing me. BG say they know that I have moved but that does not seem to have filtered through to the billing computer. It is all so Mickey Mouse.

Sorry to be a bit off-topic but I think it is all part of the same national malaise.

Current taxi fares are really getting my back up, it recently cost me £36 to travel 14 miles. I am not looking forward to the next 40 mile airport transfer bill. I can understand the problem of rising fuel costs but it is becoming too expensive.

I sat in a traffic jam at the (bank holiday) weekend for some temporary lights put up to fix a water leak that had been in the road for about two weeks. Arriving just before the holiday weekend, the men dug a hole on the Thursday and left at 3.30pm (this is May and it is light until well past 7.30pm). On Friday, they cleared the pipe so that washed gushed out rather than just leaked and finished at 1.30pm (presumably because it was a bank holiday weekend).

So all weekend, there was a gushing water main, lights, traffic jam and no workers. Why? why did they start? why did they not work through until it was fixed? Who is responsible? who do I complain to? Catriona is right - Why should we put up with it?

Travelling anywhere in Britain now is horrendous and stressful. Will I take the train? Overcrowded, overpriced, dirty and late. Will I take the bus? Same scenario. Will I take the car? Probably. I only have to worry about road works/potholes and car parking. Can anyone explain to me why we probably have the worst roads/rail/buses etc in Europe. In Spain, which I visit a lot, the roads are numerous and un-potholed. The trains are beautiful, clean, air conditioned and cheap. Likewise the buses. There is constant road building going on. Why can this happen in a country which is purportedly a "poorer" country than Britain, although I have seen no signs of this. Are our government spending our money wisely, or are other countries cheating and getting a far bigger slice of the European pie.

I too find travelling by public transport to and from the airport a stressful ordeal. No one helps you with your luggage, trains are overpriced, overcrowded and often late, the tube is filthy, packed and terribly stuffy. Does it have to be like this?

It appears to be a sad fact that nowadays travelling anywhere no matter by which form of transport is a terrible experience. Maybe we should go back in time and walk to the places that we really need to reach, we would be a lot fitter!

I do not class myself as old (just hit 40), but the other day I was having a debate about transport and thought oh my god I sound just like my Mum!!! I think that society on the whole seems to have lost its way. So many younger people seem to be so inconsiderate and therefore when travelling and having to join any sort of queue they just push and shove which makes travelling even more of a nightmare.