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Don’t you love those commercials where a suave, coiffured air hostess appears with exactly what you were thinking about at precisely the right moment and gives you a smile as if to say “you are always on my mind”? Well, you do if you are a man.

And certainly, once seated, you are usually looked after very well in the air. It’s boarding and exiting the plane that is such a hassle. Take heart, things are on the up, as we say in the airline business. ‘Holding hassle halted’ is what the headline should read. Alas, as with roads, build a stretch solution and you just move the jam further along. That’s the reality.

Dr Jason Steffan has studied the problem of aircraft loading and he has come up with a solution. It is elegant, clever, methodical and above all, brilliant technically. But the question is, are we? I seriously doubt it. You see Dr Steffan’s idea is seat-related not passenger-related. Fill certain seats in a certain order and you will have everyone on board in the minimum amount of time. Well and good.

My mind goes back to the airport lounge, to the sprawling young and the drooping old, the empty soft drinks cups and the overloaded waste bins. This is the reality chaos from which the orderly embarkation has to proceed. It’s not the lost passports that cause the trouble, it’s the lost children’s teddy bears, without which no flight can possibly proceed.

Suddenly Daddy has to embark, without the rest of the clan. But Daddy has the passports and tickets and a skin full of duty-free – excess to what he is allowed to take in bottles. He is in no condition to carry out the orderly march to through the galley to the 119th row.

The pursuing family find themselves held back – their seat loading is not yet and they must desist from wailing for father or the loudspeakers will not be able to communicate the drill required to save five minutes of loading time.

The battle switches from Teddy to admission. Security is called. It is just such a group as this that could carry the destructive mixture intended to cause another disaster. Children must be searched – but with proper, qualified, supervision, not immediately available. Teddy must have his entrails spilled for fear that liquid dynamite is hidden therein.

Father, now comfortably asleep in his seat, must be summoned to the desk – are these really your children and this lady, you Partner? Enraged at the suggestion that he has not done the decent thing and married her, a fracas breaks out. Teddy is no longer the cause, Daddy is.

Settled, if tearfully, at last, seat belts securely fastened, the pilot makes an announcement. “Due to the late arrival of certain passengers we have lost our take-off slot so there will be a delay of twenty to forty minutes. Thank you for flying…” the last words are drowned out by a moan of disapproval.

From everyone except one, very quiet, family.