Aren’t Airports fun.

Manchester, Ter­minal 3, 05.50. Oodles of time for a 07.15 flight to Frank­furt. Checked in on line at home so straight through secur­ity and cus­toms — what a breeze! Where’s my gate ? Shit ! Flight can­celled ! Pilot sick — no spares. A nice lady took me out through arrivals back to the check-in area in order to stand in a queue at the BA ticket desk where one harassed-looking man was busy re-booking people. Once I got to him, he sor­ted me out really quickly — to a Lufthansa flight leav­ing at 06.40, by then 30 minutes away, from another ter­minal , 2. I only had hand bag­gage, so run through the air­port to Lufthansa check-in. They don’t like my hand bag­gage — have to check it. Join the queue for ter­minal 2 secur­ity — about 100 yards long. Get hauled out for express lane, clutch­ing my carry-on belong­ings res­cued from my bag in a plastic folder. Scamper through empty cor­ridors to the gate. Board imme­di­ately. Get on plane, sit down. Recover. At least Lufthansa provides com­pli­ment­ary drinks and a cheese roll.

Frank­furt — earlier than anti­cip­ated due to earlier flight. No fancy board­ing tubes here — onto the tar­mac and a bus for about 5 km around the air­port. Into a ter­minal — fol­low the signs to bag­gage claim — about 3 km, on foot this time. But lo, my bag is just com­ing round the carou­sel. Check out the long dis­tance rail­way sta­tion so I know where it is — super, light, clean — but my pre-booked ticket is only valid on a later train so back to the local rail­way sta­tion and pay a brief visit to Frank­furt. Almost all shops between the Haupt­bahnhof and the centre of Eurofin­ance are appar­ently owned by Turks. Impressed by the huge statue of a Euro sign — so much more sig­ni­fic­ant of Frankfurt’s interests than some ancient phil­an­throp­ist. Back to the air­port for the ICE train to Mannheim.

ICE trains look like they ought to be all first class, they are so swish. But no, I have a 2^nd class seat reserved (with a view of a pil­lar hold­ing up the car­riage roof — this hap­pens in the UK too). My e-ticket, prin­ted out at home on A4 is zapped by the con­ductor who checks my credit card and declares him­self sat­is­fied. And the ticket tells me what plat­form I will arrive at in Man­nheim, and what plat­form my very handy con­nec­tion leaves from, and it does, on time, and the same hap­pens at Heil­bronn for my con­nec­tion to Schw­abisch Hall.

Approach­ing Heidel­berg, I can see across the fields the block of flats CArol’s cousin Bob and fam­ily lived in for a year, and from which we could look out and watch the trains in the distance.

From Heil­bronn to Ohrin­gen, halfway to SHA, the S-bahn has been exten­ded out along the rail­way line, giv­ing a much more fre­quent service.

But this is about air­ports, and how much I love them. So, paus­ing only to say that on the way back, when we pulled into Man­nheim, there was a choice of 4 ICE trains to the 4 corners of Ger­many and bey­ond wait­ing to leave as con­nec­tions within the next 10 minutes, back to Frankfurt.

For the con­veni­ence of trav­el­lers on Brit­ish Air­ways, there is a coach con­nec­tion between the ter­min­als served by the rail sta­tion and Ter­minal 2. Once at ter­minal two, there are a num­ber of screens designed to con­fuse the trav­el­ler by jug­gling a set of let­ters and num­bers pur­port­ing to relate to check-in areas and gates. The altern­at­ives are about 1km apart and of course I make the wrong choice — so check-in is slightly tight. At least they think of some­thing called “valet ser­vice” for my bag which means I can give it to someone to put in the air­craft hold right on the tar­mac, and col­lect it sim­il­arly. So, through secur­ity and then, because flights to the UK are inher­ently more likely to attract ter­ror­ists, another incred­ibly long hike along cor­ridors, up and down escal­at­ors, round corners, to yet another secur­ity check before we get to the BA wait­ing area. Wait­ing to get on a coach that is, to take us to the exact oppos­ite end of the air­port where our plane is and adja­cent to where I got off the train some time and dis­tance before.

And then BA con­nect makes you pay for your tea and bis­cuits on the plane.

I love airports.