In mid-October I arrived at Newcastle airport, North East England’s main regional airport at 4.30am on a Friday morning. I was entering the terminal building along with a couple of hundred other people. That was surprising enough but we were fighting our way in against a flood of a couple of hundred people who had landed and were coming out of the building. Check the time again, it was 4.30 in the morning.
My destination was Naples and it was very busy there as well.
On my return to Newcastle at lunchtime a week later, it was the first time in my experience at that airport, that the same baggage carousel was being used for 3 different flights. The other 2 belts were also multi-flight.
Obviously there was a bit of frustration because everything was taking longer than I had expected but it was uplifting and re-assuring to see so many individuals who are getting on with their lives and not being deterred or discouraged by the numerous potential threats that we are informed of every day.
Most people work hard and want a holiday as compensation and won’t be put off and rightly so. Students choose to travel to gain better or more varied education opportunities. Other folk need to travel for business and feel that they have an obligation to continue doing so because it is the right way, the best way or the only way of doing it. It is very interesting to note that a decade or more ago, when video conferencing became a really practical alternative to worldwide travelling for business, everyone expected it to flourish and travel to decline. It didn’t happen. In my case it is because I have always used the phone for impersonal conversations, I don’t need to see who I am talking to. I travel to see customers to make face-to-face contact, shake their hand, have a meal, a drink and a laugh with them and be more than just a supplier.
People are free to make their own choices and worldwide travel continues to flourish. Long may it continue to do so.
