It’s been a while since I’ve offered up any opinions, amusing anecdotes or tales of woe, so I thought I’d spend this sunny Sunday tapping away on my Dell, writing about the way I feel about our customers.

We have a special relationship with every one of our passengers; the kind of relationship an alcoholic parent has over its children. It’d be unfair to say we don’t love you in your own way, but there are times when you need a bit of a slap.

Every day that passes I grow more amazed and baffled at the idiocy of our customers - and yes, that includes you.

You obviously do a bit of research before flying with us, don’t you? You look around at the prices of other airlines, right? You then find us and - with our myriad taxes and surcharges included - we still turn out to be cheaper. So, you book with us.

Thank you for your custom.

Then, come the day that you and your rabid family of delinquents travel to the airport, you choose one of a few options to get there:

Driving - paying extortionate prices for petrol and parking, probably more than the flight.

Maybe by train - paying ticket prices that seem only slightly less than the cost of the train itself.

Or perhaps by coach where, if you’re unlucky enough to sit near the back, will be subjected to the smell of the toilet; freshly used by a character straight out of Trainspotting who’s going ‘cold turkey’.

Any one of these options probably cost more than the price of the flight, despite going a fraction of the distance we take you. But forget that for the moment, that would be rational thinking, wouldn’t it?

So, you reach the airport and then (if you bothered to read the instructions and constant e-mail alerts) you should be able to avoid paying anything more since, of course, you will have your boarding passes printed and you’ll have your bags at the correct size and weight, right?

No, of course not, because it seems we sell exclusively to retards.

You can then pay the “Idiot Tax” to one of our indignant members of ground staff who is forced to put up with halfwits like you all day long.

If you’re able to find your way around the airport (and, if you get lost, no doubt you’ll blame us for that as well) you may even reach the gate on time when we’re boarding. This is the point - regardless of nationality (although frankly, the Italians still win at this) - that you start fighting to get to the front of the queue.

That calm English disposition is thrown right out the window and replaced with a raging lunatic, pushing small children and old women aside to get a slightly less shitty seat than you would have had before.

Then, depending on airport, you get the relative calm of the airport bus where you all get to complain to one another about the journey so far and laugh with solidarity before you beat the shit out of each other again to get up the steps of the airplane.

You then place your baggage in the least convenient way possible (horizontally? really?) delaying the take off and inconveniencing the passengers that were polite enough not to bruise you at the gate.

Then, you’re in a seat which is likely far more spacious and comfortable than the coach you probably journeyed to the airport in, and you complain even more about the conditions on board; making it sound like you’re forced to fly in a chinook across to Afghanistan.

Admittedly, we then play a few advertisements but since you all watch commercial TV, surely that’s not a problem, right?

We then land you all in your destination of choice, far quicker and safer than any other method of transport, and we let you get on with your cretinous holiday while you merrily complain to each other at the way we’ve treated you along the way.

So, how does this add up?

We take you hundreds/thousands of miles, for the price of a ticket that’s likely less than the cost of getting to the airport. We have a few rules that, as long as you can read, you can avoid any issues with. We don’t have assigned seating, but then, neither do trains, buses of coaches so that shouldn’t be a problem? We then get you to your destination on time, in most cases, unless Mario was holding everyone up with his misshaped luggage.

The trumpet sound we play isn’t actually for just when we’re on time - it’s a happy little reminder to ourselves that it’s the time when you can all get off the damn plane and perhaps, if your experience was bad enough, book with someone else next time.

So feel free to complain to everyone about us but, in the end, you’ll be back on our plane next time you fly because we’re cheap and - more importantly - you’re cheap.

Now bugger off.