On the buses

Spain last week. Germany today. Greece and Poland to go before the year is out. All is well in consultingland; if I'm not on planes I'm most likely not getting paid.

There's a peculiar zen-state that rescues habitual travellers from the procession of petty indignities that is modern air travel. Check in (online), line-up and zone out. Even so, most of us have a particular issue that cuts through the mental stasis to trigger a bout of low-level seething.

For me it's the increasing practice of deplaning passengers away from the terminal onto buses. I know this is essentially an irrational grievance; tarmac disembarkation greatly increases an airport's capacity which is a good thing. My annoyance stems from an barely irrepressible need to move far faster than the slowest of my fellow passengers. Upon arrival I want my autonomy back as soon as possible.

Nowhere does this seething strike me so often or so markedly than at Heathrow's Terminal Five, built at a cost of £4.3 billion for the exclusive use of British Airways, surely the World's Most Underwhelming Airline.

BA makes a habit of making unsustainable promises that often bear no relationship to the real world. Predictions of 'a rapid approach to Heathrow' are inevitably revised to account for 15-20 minutes on a holding pattern circling London. Time lost on departure is never 'made up thanks to favourable tail winds'. And 'having you at your terminal' is of course BA-speak for 'pulling up next to some slippery metal stairs opposite a seatless bus on some windswept corner of the airport'.

All with the Richard Rogers-designed building shining like a beacon in the distance.