We’re heading for a summer of airport chaos – but it’s not all doom and gloom

If we look beyond the barriers that currently can make travel a misery – or stop us travelling altogether – we can glimpse a different and, in some ways, brighter future, writes Hamish McRae

This is a bad weekend for travel everywhere (REUTERS)

Air travel will get more expensive. We know that, because Michael O’Leary, boss of Ryanair, says so, and he has been pretty good at crunching down the costs. He thinks the average fare for a Ryanair flight will rise from around €40 to between €50 and €60 over the next five years.

But wait a moment. Surely £50 for a flight from the UK to the Med would still be unbelievably cheap – a thousand miles for half the price of filling up the car or a couple of rounds of drinks in the pub. The more important question surely is whether air travel will also become more uncomfortable and less reliable.

This is a bad weekend for travel everywhere. It’s the Independence Day holiday in the States, with airports seeing the highest number of travellers since the pandemic began. As a result, there has been huge strains, with a string of cancellations, and nearly half the flights out of New York were delayed.