In a move that can only be described as a collective suicide pact dressed in a Ryanair uniform, a major airline has announced plans to operate 20-hour non-stop flights. Because nothing says 'modern luxury' like being trapped in a pressurised aluminium tube for the better part of a day, breathing recycled farts and eating something that claims to be chicken but is almost certainly a lab-grown regret. British aviation regulators, those fearless guardians of our skies, have responded with the kind of urgency usually reserved for deciding which biscuits to have with tea: they have launched a 'review' into safety.
A review. Because obviously the only thing standing between us and a 20-hour economy seat is a clipboard and a civil servant with a mild caffeine dependency. Let us be clear: this is not innovation.
This is a bet that human endurance can be stretched like an overworked metaphor in a hack writer's column. They claim it will save time, presumably by discarding the few remaining hours of sanity we have left. The real question: who will be the first to snap and attempt to open the emergency exit at 40,000 feet just to get a glimpse of the outside world?
The regulators will study it, write a report, file it next to the one about the dangers of dodgy shrimp, and the flights will go ahead. Because in the end, money wins. And time.
And the quiet, smirking satisfaction of knowing that a hundred passengers are, at this very moment, discovering the true limits of their own bladder.
