Chicken or beef? Picking an in-flight meal is pretty straightforward; public attitudes towards flying are anything but. So much was made clear yesterday. News that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic colluded to jack up airfares met with understandable outrage: how dare they add to the expense of flying? BA's punishment was a £121.5m fine in Britain and a further £148m in the US. Afternoon came and the aviation industry faced more opprobrium, as Heathrow airport took environmental activists to court to prevent disruptive protests. Going by yesterday's grumbling, the British want the right to protest and disrupt airports - and they want cheaper flights as well. Chicken and beef, then - oh, and the vegetarian option too.
Businesses should not gang up to fleece the public; all would agree on that. Rather fewer would admit that airfares should go up in price, to try and cap growth in an industry with huge climate-changing potential. The green activists attempting to camp at Heathrow for a week this month would doubtless agree - but on that issue travellers are displaying a different kind of double-thinking. Heathrow visitors agree it is a shambles; a badly-run airside shopping mall, where the only thing freely available is aggravation. Yet when the airport management try to head off another summer of disruption, this time at the hands of demonstrators, its reward is anger at the way it decided to go about it.
Heathrow's owner BAA has indeed been ludicrously heavy-handed in seeking such a wide-ranging court injunction. If a handful of activists did mount a serious disruption, airport bosses would be able to call on the usual security measures. They do not need the right to send the heavies after any suspect travelling on nearby motorways or the tube. Indeed, they admit as much by promising not to use all their sought-for powers. That said, the airport is right to worry about campaign leaflets promising "Heathrow will be closed". It can also point to last year's climate camp at Drax power station, when activists jumped the security fence. Then the protesters numbered 800; this time organisers hope for 2,000. The "battle of Drax" was over swiftly, but any similar target - especially an airport just emerging from a security scare - needs to take precautions.
Environmentalists are right to demand that the aviation industry becomes more responsible for the pollution it causes. But they are not showing a corresponding consideration. Raising awareness is fine; causing disruption to no particular end is pointless. The public distrusts big business when it protects its interests - but also moans when its holiday plans are upset. On this, as on the politics of flying in general, we cannot have it both ways.
