The real hazards of air travel are on the ground in the cattle pens and public undressing area

I’ve never disguised my dislike for the discomforts of air travel, but my partner Sue recently told a friend rather alarmingly that I “freak out at airports”. I ‘m a little concerned that this might deter others from travelling with me on the grounds that I’m a flight risk. So it’s time to put the record straight.

The truth is I don’t freak out. I fly into an extremely well managed rage, characterised by controlled grimaces and mumbled verbal vehemence. These manifestations of protest are well short of behaviour which could get me marched off to an interrogation room (though sometimes I think I’d welcome the chance to share my disquiet with those who are causing it rather than inflicting it only on my friends and loved ones). This admittedly makes me poor company at airports – unless you’re amused by this sort of thing – but perfectly safe to be with.

One of the interesting characteristics of airport security staff is that they are remarkably sensitive to the body language and facial expressions of people who have absolutely no intention of committing acts of smuggling or terrorism. I would have thought that this would make them poor at distinguishing real smugglers and terrorists, but that’s not my immediate concern. Their hyper-responsiveness is actually quite funny up to the point when they home in on a slightly raised eyebrow of dissatisfaction to make one a victim of their virtual strip searches. I don’t know about others, but when I take off my belt my trousers tend to fall down.

It has to be conceded that my experience of ill-treatment at airports has decreased slightly since all the other men on the planet have grown beards and mine has turned from black to grey. The beard used to be a dead give-away, so it must be really hard nowadays for these poor security workers to identify a sure-fire hard-line Jihadist.

The beard thing used to make me feel picked on. But of course the main mechanism for discouraging the mass murder of our fellow citizens is the mass humiliation of the travelling public. Yes, you have to be a very determined terrorist to tolerate the current level of airport discomfort. So my outrage now is focussed mainly against being treated the same as everyone else, trailing tediously through the cattle pens to the public undressing area at the body scanner and the electronic wand wielded like the slaughterer’s bolt gun.

          If there really is a point to removing our shoes then surely underwear must follow.                            

As for the requirement to remove our footwear, I’ve a strong feeling that no one seriously checks our shoes after we’ve shed them. So the only explanation for this demeaning treatment is that the security officials want to make us shorter. We will presumably be intimidated into subjugation by the British state by the apparently enhanced stature of its agents.

The assault on shoes only started after some idiot on his way to meet virgins in Paradise tried the surprising trick of exploding his sole. Later another even less competent aspirational suicide bomber was detected clad in explosive underpants. I’ve been puzzled by the inconsistency of airports which persist in getting us to take off our shoes, but very rarely ask us to remove our underpants. If there really is a point to losing our shoes then surely underwear must follow.

Incidentally, I do try to resist blaming the workers individually. Some of them may by nature be unsmiling officious nobs. But it’s a fair guess that their training manual specifies the importance of employees being unsmiling officious nobs as overtly and recognisably as possible. Perhaps in the past I would have shrugged off my distaste saying, “I suppose they know best.” But they don’t. What they know is how to make travellers more uncomfortable, more delayed, and more compliant than could ever possibly be necessary.

In India, a country not entirely immune to acts of terrorism against foreign travellers, Sue and I were mildly mistreated at an airport by the bureaucratic inefficiency of the visa system. We queued for what seemed like hours, desperate after a long flight to get off to our hotel. This wasn’t a great experience, but it was reassuring to know we were being held up not by malice, as we might have been here, but by mere casual incompetence. In other oversees airports we have been encouraged to complete questionnaires on the way we were treated, so the authorities can improve their service. Can you imagine that at Manchester Airport, which is officially one of Britain’s worst? You’re more likely to be required to sign a gagging order at the immigration desk.

If anyone was bothered, a bit of intelligent management and a little money could ameliorate the misery in the UK. How is it necessary, for instance, after I’ve removed my backpack, coat, belt, shoes, phone, cash and keys that I have to redress myself in an open thoroughfare with scores of fellow passengers pouring round me? If I try to put my shoes on while standing up I usually fall over. What possible excuse does any authority have for exposing men and women to this indignity?

Well to make us safe, they say. Hah! Really? Look at the risks: very few planes crash, and only a very small proportion of those that crash have ever done so because of terrorism. The most generous explanation for the despicable treatment is that it makes people feel safer. It’s a pity other air travellers don’t look at the simple arithmetic and grimace along with me while we are being ritually humiliated.

There is a serious point here: I don’t trust a state which deliberately creates the circumstances in which its citizens are dehumanised. It happens automatically in war and in totalitarian regimes. It happens here at airports, and with Universal Credit, and with social care. The unpalatable reality is that wherever people feel naturally vulnerable the state may choose gratuitously (a conspiracy theorist might say insidiously) to exercise its power by making them feel worse.

I don’t freak out or over-react at airports. I think I’m a coward for not resisting more strongly.