The Man Who Pays His Way: Celebrations in Toulouse – Panic and frustration in Glasgow...

Right place, right time: that is every traveller's goal. To be looking across the valley at the Alhambra in Granada as the sun sets on the most magnificent Islamic monument in Europe makes the spirits soar, as does finding yourself on the edge of the world (also known as the Isle of Lewis) as a raging storm subsides to a golden afterglow.

Mostly, I find the right time and/or the right place extremely elusive. My travels comprise a litany of missed flights, overbooked hotels and arriving for festivals that turn out to have ended the day before. But last weekend was just the moment to be in la ville rose, Toulouse in south-west France.

From miles away you could tell this was a city en fête. Searchlights pierced the sky, keeping time with a symphony orchestra performing in the main square. Acrobats sailed through the air with as much grace as the city's greatest contribution to aviation design, the Sud-Aviation Caravelle. Half the citizens were on the streets of Toulouse. The other half were beneath them, trying out the reason for celebration – a new Metro line. The shiny, new and driverless Ligne B cuts from east to west across the city, and even has its own tag line: "The new link between us."

The throngs were full of praise for the one-third-of-a-billion-euro project. "It means a new life for Toulouse," a tour guide told me, "no more traffic." To steer more motorists off the roads and underground, the mayor plans a 18mph speed limit in the city centre.

In the heart of Toulouse last Saturday there was no traffic at all, as roads were closed and dignitaries took their turn on a sun-splashed podium to deliver interminable speeches.

The dazzling new stations, each with individually commissioned works of art, proved much more interesting. Passengers were welcomed with jazz or samba bands, and naturally travel throughout Toulouse. A fine time to be in a fine city (and, from my point of view, a thankfully long way from the irate pilots who have taken issue with my comments last week about flight-deck fatigue; see Open Jaw on page 19 for some representative responses, and the website www.pprune.org for more of the same).

One thousand miles further north, an act of aggression last Saturday afternoon made Glasgow Airport exactly the wrong place to be. Scotland lost its immunity to the current wave of attempted atrocities when two men apparently tried to commit mass murder by blowing up a car at a crowded airport terminal. The failed attempt started a chain of events that will affect millions of British travellers - and many workers in the industry.

The immediate impact was to alarm, delay and frustrate thousands of people who were trying to go on holiday or get home but who instead found themselves trapped in aircraft on the ground in Glasgow, diverted to other locations, or waiting at distant airports for a plane that would not arrive for many hours. A heightened state of tension led to other airports temporarily shutting this week in response to "acts of aggression" as innocent as inadvertently leaving a suitcase lying around. The hypersensitivity of British aviation was illustrated by the chaos at Heathrow on Tuesday, when a misplaced bag led to the closure of Terminal 4 and the cancellation of more than 100 flights. Tens of thousands of travellers found themselves on an involuntary camping holiday in Middlesex as BA staff erected the now-familiar Heathrow marquees.

Expect more such false alarms during the summer. If you have the misfortune to find yourself caught up in one, make sure the airline honours its obligations to you. "Security" has become something of a blanket excuse to justify all sorts of failings in aviation, but if airlines choose to operate in a country at high risk of terrorism they have to play by the rules. Under European law, you are entitled to meals and accommodation commensurate with the delay – whatever its cause.

British travellers – as well as airline and airport staff - have proved remarkably resilient to shocks and scares. Among the aftershocks from the latest bid to massacre holidaymakers, though, will be yet more layers of security. As I pointed out earlier this year, there is an absurd disparity of vulnerability at Britain's airports between "airside" (ie after the security control point) and "landside". From a terrorist's perspective, the tougher it becomes to smuggle a weapon on board an aircraft, the more tempting a soft target like an airport becomes. So don't be surprised when passengers are required to undergo a search even before entering the airport.

The threat of terror may not frighten us, but one effect is that every airline passenger is assumed to be an international terrorist until he or she has gone through the increasingly intrusive, uncomfortable and stressful business of proving otherwise; see Robin Lustig's story on page 8 for evidence.

If people stay on the ground, the environment may benefit, but poorer parts of the world will lose out. And the chances that you will find yourself in the right place at the right time will sadly diminish.

Entente Cordiale?

The right place to be this weekend? No question: London. The capital is hosting Live Earth and the start of the Tour de France. The world's greatest cycle race steers a course through east and south-east London towards Canterbury. As they rest before the mêlée of Lycra, French competitors may have glanced at the TV news from France.

My viewing this week suggests a certain Schadenfreude among the Paris-based networks: on Wednesday, scenes of the pandemonium at Terminal 4 were followed by pictures of the washout from a tennis-free All England Club.

For a sense of balance, the cyclists might want to note a couple of sites close to the course: the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which celebrates the fact that the world's prime meridian passes through London SE10, not Paris; and, across the river, the preparations for the 2012 Olympics. Bonne chance.