Rona Dougall: Holidaymakers were once treated like royalty. Now they are treated like cattle

My heart goes out to anyone who’s been trying to get away on holiday this past week. What a nightmare.

The pictures of horrendously long queues, and airport departure halls crammed full of miserable passengers have made my blood run cold. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled with little or no notice.

People have been left sitting on planes long past their departure time. One furious pilot was even forced to call the police to help passengers and crew disembark after they were abandoned on the runway at Manchester airport for more than three hours.

For many, this will be their first trip away since the Covid pandemic turned our worlds upside down almost three years ago. It’s a dream that will have sustained them through those long miserable months of lockdown. The tantalizing thought of blue skies and azure seas gave so many of us something to look forward to. It was the shining light at the end of the tunnel. And now this.

The UK Government has blamed the travel industry for not being prepared for the inevitable surge in bookings that would come as soon as restrictions were lifted. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps hasn’t pulled any punches and said they should have had staff in place.

But aviation companies say the authorities were mucking them around by constantly changing the regulations and had warned ages ago that they needed enough notice of restrictions being lifted to ramp recruitment back up.

If I were one of the mums with little kids stranded at an airport overnight I don’t think I’d give a fig whose fault it was, I’d just want it sorted.

The bad news is that this may go on into the summer. So you have to wonder why tickets are still being sold for bargain basement breaks if airlines are already struggling to cope? It’s not a good look when so many people are already extremely upset with the service they’re providing.

We’re due to go abroad in three weeks’ time and rather than looking forward to a long-overdue break I’m now a bundle of nerves about whether we will actually get to our destination. I dread the amount of hassle we will encounter along the way.

I don’t cope well with long queues or petty bureaucracy so I fear the whole experience is going to be fraught. Think how glamorous and cool flying used to be back in the day. Passengers would dress up to the nines and be treated like royalty. Now, we are treated more like cattle.

I don’t think my parents would have dreamt of going abroad for our family holidays when we were children. We usually rented a house up north and spent the week on the beach come rain or shine. Predominantly rain. One year, we hit the jackpot though and arrived in Ardnamurchan at the start of a heat wave.

We had a white sandy beach to ourselves, apart from a few cows, and the sun beat down on us for the full week. It was idyllic. And there had been no ordeal to endure at the airport or threat of cancelled plans.

Perhaps we should all just holiday at home this summer. Having said that, with all that’s going on with our rail services at the moment, I’m not sure how easy that might be either.

A friend of mine got the train from Edinburgh to his home half an hour outside Dundee last Sunday. It took him 10 and a half hours to complete his journey.

The cost-of-living crisis is starting to hit hard. An STV poll found that the issue has rocketed to the top of major concerns for voters, above the NHS, education and the economy.

Worryingly, it’s the poorest families who’re being disproportionately affected. According to data from the Office for National Statistics the cost of even the cheapest food in supermarkets is soaring, with the lowest-priced pasta products rising by more than 50% since the start of the year.

It’s heartbreaking to hear parents describe how they’re skipping meals so their children can eat. I heard a mum on the news the other day saying she was only eating once a day as her budget was so squeezed. The despair and fear in her voice was shocking.

Scotland’s food banks have warned the Scottish Government that they are struggling to keep up with a huge rise in demand for their services. Even people with jobs are coming through their doors.

The UK Government’s recent announcement of £15 billion of financial help was a welcome relief to many, but campaigners were quick to point out that this was just a drop in the ocean. With gas and electricity bills set to go up again in the autumn there is more heartache ahead.