9 to 5 Traveller: Frequent Flier points are no bonus.

Sometime yesterday morning Alison would have woken up in London having covered 3 continents, twelve thousand miles, 3 airports and 28 hours of flight time. I really feel sorry for her today, even if she gets to be at home with family and friends while I slog it out at the office. Let's be honest, long haul flying is a horrible experience. Old Frank Sinatra tried to make flying sound romantic, Michael Buble tried to close the deal too, but when two of the smoothest crooners in the land can't convince us, you know it's bad.


Even Mr Buble would get a slap if he serenaded her at Heathrow when she landed (Gary Barlow on the other hand might have had a chance.)  'Where the air is rarefied, We'll just glide, starry eyed'... Starry eyed jet lag due to oxygen deprived conditioned air that is.

Long distance flying is one of the worst aspects of leaving Europe, and living in more isolated continents. You ultimately end up on more long distance flights than ever. You finally understand first hand why only a third of Americans own a passport, and only a quarter of Australians ever use theirs. They have to fly a long way just to get out of their own airspace.

I do actually enjoy flights of around four to five hours. That's just enough time to lose yourself in a good book, or catch a new movie. You can enjoy a conversation with your partner, neighbour or the flight staff, and sip a glass of wine or three, safe in the knowledge that in no time at all you'll be in an exciting new country.

After five hours flying time everything changes. You have to try to sleep in a seat made for sitting. The guy in front reclines his seat fully back leaving a space of about 6 inches in which to breathe. You realise the friendly person you struck up a conversation with before now won't stop talking / snoring / farting / or going to the loo. Kids are getting restless and crying. You're on your second tray of a chicken surprise dinner for one. Even the flight staff become irritable and they are paid to be friendly. You have ten more hours to go, and can only think about how crap you will feel when you land in some strange foreign land. The toilets are disease ridden cess pits. It's normally about this time I want to strangle the idiot who pulled the plug on supersonic travel.

Surely there must be a better way, and I don't mean business class, which is well and truly reserved for the rich or fortunate. I thought things might change when the super plane A380 arrived on the scene, what with its double deck and all. But if you have been on one of these, you know that nothing has changed. The top deck is all business or first class, which now comes with bars, jacuzzi's, private apartments, and butler service. The lower deck is exactly the same, they just cram even more seats in. I love this idea from Lufthansa, which basically suggests removing all the seats and creating beds instead. I did a double take to check it wasn't an April fool's joke, and although the Daily Mail seems to think it's degrading, I say bring it on!

There is of course the option of not travelling in the first place, like the Americans and Australians, but then you would miss out on so many amazing new places. So for now put up with it we must, and pray the Germans see this crazy idea through. If anyone can, they can.

Over the past five years, I clocked up over two hundred and fifty thousand airmiles with Emirates, all in cattle class. Frequent flier miles were considered a perk of the job. The irony is that my reward for spending bucket loads of corporate cash with them was to get to spend more time flying. You may not be surprised to hear that I have not left the office in Melbourne in nine months in my new job. Now that is a genuine perk.