The Aer Lingus strike has really highlighted how cheap air travel is bloody brilliant, right up to the moment the teeny-tiniest thing goes wrong.
Back then, the old B&I were operating vessels between Dublin and Liverpool that felt like they had started out on Arctic Convoy duty in 1942, dodging U-Boats. There were winter crossings made in the 1980s to Holyhead when it felt like you should have a little group of musicians playing Abide With Me on the deck while people fought to get into the lifeboats.
These days, every flight seems fraught with nerve-shredding risk. Budget airlines like Ryanair are amazing on price, but make one mistake and you can get absolutely hammered on extra costs, or if there’s one problem at one little airport somewhere in Europe the whole system falls apart.