Airports Everywhere
| 11:44 UK time, Wednesday, 22 November 2006
I've just been in Ireland for a couple of days taking care of a little bit of family business.
The city I went to, Waterford in the Southeast, used to be rather hard to reach.
You could take the ferry, which takes a whole day or a day-and-a-night. Or longer if there is a storm, as happened on my birthday a few years ago - I spent most of it on the floor of the ship's restaurant.
You could fly to Dublin and take the train, which takes most of the day.
Or you could fly to Cork and take the bus. You'd arrive at Cork airport - shiny and marbled. You'd take a taxi nto town - ricketty. And you'd get the bus for three hours - rattling and combustible (well, once anyway, I ended up stood by the roadside watching the bus smouldering after something happened to the motor).
But now you can fly, at low cost, to the local airport. It's a sign of the aviation revolution happening across Europe.
There's still some work to do on that, though.
Once you get to the airport, unless you've booked a hire car, you're stuck.
The local authorities recently deregulated the taxi licenses, so there's fierce competition and waiting at the airport means a taxi driver risks not getting a fare and driving all the way back empty. So they don't come on spec.
And the authorities haven't yet come up with a plan to put on a bus.
So after a very efficient flight, I found myself standing, waiting.
After twenty minutes, thinking it was a lovely autumn morning, I decided to walk - I had hardly any luggage and my meeting wasn't for a couple of hours.
It was easy and interesting walking along the lanes, past cow pastures and hedgerows. A rat ran out of a hedge and almost over my feet.
But the road was stretching out - there wasn't a map at the airport and nowhere to buy one, so I had only guessed the distance as we flew over the city.
Luckily I met Tosh.
He was feeding his horses in a field by the road, and we fell into talking about the local riding.
He offered me a lift in his butcher van.
So surrounded by bags of oats and bales of hay (no pig carcasses, thank goodness) I arrived in town.
I suppose one day there'll be a smart minibus service or even a light rail system.
It won't be as much fun as a ride in Tosh's van chatting about horses.
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