Of course, there is nothing glamorous about air travel these days. British airports are designed to cause you as much aggravation as possible, even before you get to security. Terminals have been turned into giant shopping malls with departure gates attached, miles into the middle distance.
There's nothing worse, or quite as disorientating, than having to run the gauntlet at 7am of strobe lights, loud disco music and women who look as if they've been made-up by morticians spraying you with horrible perfume.
Not to mention getting robbed blind at the foreign exchange counter because the value of the pound has fallen through the floor.
So the last thing you need to fear is that the union representing pilots earning anything up to 200 grand a year will decide to call a strike on the day you are due to fly.
And that's before you even get to your destination, where it will take you all week to unwind, fretting about whether your return flight is going to be cancelled because of industrial action.
No wonder a report published yesterday claimed it takes most of us four days to recover from a two-week summer break.
So let's hope the pilots' union backs down. Here's something for their negotiators to consider.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan grew sick of American air traffic controllers holding passengers to ransom. After one walkout too many, he gave them 48 hours to return to work.
Those who didn't comply were sacked. Around 11,000 were fired and many never worked in the industry again.
British Airways employs around 4,000 pilots, but they needn't think they are all indispensable.
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