I’m waiting for my granddaughter to collect her luggage when the baggage handlers put it on for Carol so it can be collected.

While I’m sitting, I’m thinking about the fact that when we first travelled on an aeroplane in 1975, passengers were much different to the way they are now, in terms of the way they dress and just their general department and demeanour.

It’s so much more casual now with everybody dressed in anything.

The airports are jampacked with people everywhere even here in Darwin. At Darwin, there’s a lot of confusion at the moment because upgrades are happening within the terminal and also outside. I think they’re anticipating a major uptake in the number of people coming through and using this airport in future years.

To say that passengers – and there are lots  of them  – are anything other than amotley collection would be an overstatement.

These days the crush of people going through airports onto planes to sit in cramped circumstances like battery hens in cages is the way it is in 2024.