Flying is bad for mind, body and planet. So why do we go through this miserable ritual every summer?

Think moving house is the most stressful thing you can do? Try moving through Heathrow in the middle of the great getaway

Moving house is said to be one of the most stressful experiences, worse than getting divorced or starting a new job. This week, I attempted to exchange contracts on one home and buy another, and I was reduced to a quivering wreck in the process. But for sheer unpleasantness, a devastating assault on all our senses, nothing compares to air travel.

Forget the “joy of travel” – anything that involves an airport will be the complete opposite. For “joy”, read “misery”. And yet, lemming-like, we continue to succumb.

This weekend, millions of holidaymakers will submit to that exercise in ritual humiliation and physical deprivation that is known as “catching a flight”. On Thursday, the scene at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was all too familiar, as problems with the British Airways check-in system resulted in queues of up to two hours and hundreds of passengers were forced to take off without their luggage.

The protest group Extinction Rebellion wants us to stop travelling by air unless it is unavoidable. I reluctantly agree. Perhaps the airport authorities have secretly been infiltrated by environmental protestors, because using them is so unpleasant it makes me think twice about ever booking another flight. Air travel surely shortens our lives, just by inflicting unacceptable levels of stress.

Summer holidays are the busiest six weeks of the year for the aviation industry, and signal the start of the air strike season too. This year, all major UK airports will be affected.

At Heathrow, Unite workers (in security and engineering, as well as passenger service operatives and drivers) plan to strike three times, starting next weekend and ending with the August Bank Holiday. At Stansted, easyJet check-in staff have scheduled 17 days of strikes starting next Thursday, ending on Bank Holiday weekend. At Gatwick, Unite is conducting a strike ballot with members working as security staff, in cleaning services, and moving luggage.

Two groups of pilots are also planning to stop work in August in pursuit of better pay and conditions: British Airways pilots were in talks that broke down and the result of a strike ballot is due on 22 July, which means they could walk out two weeks later; Ryanair pilots were in talks that also collapsed, with the results of a ballot due on 7 August, so they too could be on strike by 21 August.

Last summer, 450 Ryanair pilots in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Sweden went on strike, resulting in the cancellation of 450 flights with serious disruption for travellers across Europe.

As if that weren’t enough to deter any sane person from choosing to fly this summer, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Gail Bradbrook, announced that the group has drawn up detailed proposals to disrupt Heathrow over the coming weeks. Earlier plans to fly drones at night over flight paths to prevent the airport opening in the morning were abandoned after police intervened. Now Bradbrook says protestors plan to fly dozens of pink drones – “little crappy toys from a little crappy toyshop” – no more than six feet off the ground all around the perimeter of the exclusion zone at Heathrow, and has 415 “arrestable eco-warriors” at the ready. She says, “Our intention is to ground aviation and to have this conversation ... nobody is getting threatened, attacked or anything.” I don’t imagine that any kind of “conversation” about halting a third runway and curtailing emissions will play well with the millions of families trying to go on holiday.

The vulnerability of airports was illustrated last December when drone sightings forced Gatwick to close for 33 hours, cancelling 1,000 flights and affecting the plans of some 150,000 travellers. And still we choose to fly.

From the moment you try to purchase an airline ticket, the humble traveller is not treated like a valued customer, but an irritant, a mug who must pay for a seat, a carry-on bag, a place in a queue and overpriced snacks on board. That mindset continues as you attempt to travel: queueing to check-in marks the start of ritual humiliation, then the shuffle in another zig-zag queue to get through security. Then you’re stripping off to go through a body scanner, and if (like me) you have had a hip or knee replacement, you’re suddenly a potential terrorist. Having navigated security, then the interminable walk to a gate, where there won’t be enough seats, and then another queue to board, to force yourself into a seat where you assume the pose of a folded up praying mantis, and god forbid you place your elbows on the tiny strips of feeble plastic that function as “armrests”.

On arrival, car hire is guaranteed to involve further queueing. Last month at Lisbon airport, already overburdened before the start of the holiday season, passport scanners were not functioning, passport control on entry was taking up to two hours for non-EU citizens, and the car hire hall was a seething mass of disgruntled customers holding raffle tickets as they waited (with no seats) for at least 90 minutes to pick up a vehicle – only to find that, having completed the paperwork, they had to walk somewhere else to find a car they were by now praying was actually in the terminal.

Further proof that airlines treat passengers with utter contempt: a KLM spokesperson said that breastfeeding mothers might be asked to “cover up” when feeding their babies during a flight. The airline was also criticised this week for tweeting a description of the safest seats in the event of a crash. “According to data studies by Time, the fatality rate for the seats in the middle of the plane is the highest,” it remarked. “However, the fatality rate for the seats in the front is marginally lesser and is least for seats at the rear third of a plane ... Seats at the back of a plane are the safest!”

The tweet was posted on the fifth anniversary of the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine killing everyone on board. The flight also carried a KLM flight number and was routed from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

For airport operators, a pretence of caring for their customers must be maintained, yet they score million of pounds in revenue from food and drink every time there is a delay. Heathrow Airport has said it is “disappointed” at the strike action. So are the executives at Stansted. They can’t be surprised; this chaos happens every single August.

Flying is bad for your mind and body. So do try and give it up.