‘Der nächste bitte, next please.’  The desk agent had the enthusiasm of someone whose shift was minutes from ending, for whom the ticks of the clock could not come quickly enough.

‘Good evening,’ offered Kevin, with an equal lack of intensity, advancing towards the check-in.

‘Welcome to KnightSky Air.’ The woman – German, middle-aged, and business-like with it – displayed a plastic smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Any hold luggage, sir?’

‘No, just these carry-ons.’

Kevin had made an art of austerity in his packing over the past few months, stripping it down to the absolute minimum that would fit in an overhead locker, all so he could get on and get o# the plane as swiftly as possible. Anything that could pare off even a few seconds from the tedium of air travel was worth the effort. Standing beside a baggage carousel was the dullest part of the ordeal, staring blankly at other people’s cases drifting by while you waited vainly for yours to emerge.

He handed over his passport and ticket. The agent eyed the paper dismissively. ‘You do know that you can use your smartphone rather than print a boarding pass?’

‘I’m aware,’ he replied. ‘I just prefer . . . You know. A real thing. Something in my hand.’ As much by trade as by personality, Kevin was an engineer, and that mind-set brought an attachment to physical objects and a healthy scepticism about the reliability of technology. The one time he hadn’t brought a paper copy, he’d been stuck at Gatwick for hours when KnightSky’s buggy smartphone app had decided to eat his flight reservation.

‘It is more efficient,’ the desk agent said pointedly. ‘Better for the environment.’ She inclined her head towards a sign extolling the virtues of the airline’s green policy, complete with a guilt-inducing photo of a polar bear clinging to an ice floe.

Kevin had gone through this conversation on each flight in and out of Barsbeker. Normally, he would have let it go, but today his tolerance had worn to nothing. He resisted the opportunity to suggest that the airline actually do something about their awful environmental record instead of dumping responsibility on their passengers, and settled for some light sarcasm…

Continue reading the extract here…

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