Virgin on the sublime

THE LAST STRAW: It was another exciting week for air travellers, with interesting developments across the customer-service spectrum. At one end, the no-frills carrier Ryanair responded to recent criticisms with a passenger charter and a million free seats.

At the other, the extremely-frilled operator Virgin Atlantic announced the replacement of baby-changing tables on its newest planes, after a series of mystery breakages.

As many parents know, changing a two-year-old on a plane can be a strenuous job. But it appears that the problem on Virgin flights is that the tables are being used for activities traditionally more associated with making babies that changing them.

The tables are contained in "mother and baby rooms" on the company's new Airbus planes; and childless passengers are cunningly exploiting the loophole of a facility designed to admit two people, thereby causing undue strain on the fittings.

I was on a Finnair flight last week, incidentally, when a passenger opposite me attempted to light a cigarette. I only noticed this when an angry cabin-crew member suddenly loomed over him with a stern warning. Smoking on an aeroplane, he told the offender, was "VERY, VERY prohibited".

Having sex on a Virgin aeroplane is not as prohibited as that, apparently. Commenting on the broken tables, a spokeswoman only said: "We don't mind couples having a good time, but this is not something we would encourage because of air regulations." Given the airline's sexy image, however, even such a reservation is questionable. Short of providing couples with candle-lit champagne and oysters, it could hardly be more encouraging.

When its Airbus A340-600 service was introduced several weeks ago, the first plane was named after supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who launched it. Company boss Richard Branson boasted proudly that it was the world's longest commercial aircraft; and before anyone could accuse him of being phallocentric, he revealed that the message "mine's bigger than yours" was inscribed on the side. According to the press release, the plane's features include "mood lighting" in the toilets.

In fairness, Virgin also claims to provide "the most advanced in-flight entertainment system in the world"; although even this is clearly not entertaining enough for Virgin passengers. I'm not sure what exactly those air regulations say about mid-air sex, but the company may soon have to amend the standard warnings pilots issue during flights: "This is your captain speaking. We're experiencing some turbulence at the moment, so we'd ask you to keep your zips securely fastened, table-tops stowed - especially in the mother and baby room - and you and your partner in an upright position, until further notice."

Mood lighting is not one of the guarantees in the Ryanair customer charter. Indeed, the company is scornful about up-market airlines, and tends to see the passengers who use them as overcharged, oversexed and over the Atlantic. So when chief executive Michael O'Leary mounted what the Financial Times called a "PR offensive" this week, it lived up to the description in every sense.

Targeting British Airways for special criticism, O'Leary explained that it was an "age-old Irish custom to give an English guy a kick when he's on the ground". Some people might say this was taking historical revisionism too far. Even allowing for the work of Roy Keane - who is statistically just as likely to kick Norwegians and other non-English guys - the balance sheet of Anglo-Irish history suggests a higher figure in the "kicks, incoming" column. But it's possible that Mr O'Leary, the Roy Keane of air travel, was just seeking publicity, through the age-old tactic of annoying people.

If so he succeeded, and retaliation from the English press was swift. The Guardian announced a 24-hour moratorium on political correctness and deployed a joke about a man ringing Dublin Airport to ask how long a flight to Frankfurt took: "Just a second," the receptionist replied, consulting a colleague. Pleasantly surprised, the Irishman thanked her and hung up." But either way, O'Leary is laughing, and has filled his planes till Christmas.

Speaking of full planes, the other interesting aviation story of the week was in the Sunday Times. This claimed that on a recent Aer Lingus flight from London, a reporter travelling as the guest of an airline employee and passing himself off as a staff member was accommodated in the cockpit. According to the same report, a second passenger occupied a seat directly behind the pilot, "within reach of the controls". It's not clear whether any regulations were broken, but the story suggests that Aer Lingus cockpits are seeing nearly as much passenger activity as Virgin's mother and baby rooms. Security at the airline is said to be under review.

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