Ryanair is taking its philosophy to the logical extreme. I saw the future of air travel on my way to Ireland for the weekend and it is cramped. Ryanair’s brand new Boeing 737-800 plane, in service for just a month and the vanguard of their new fleet, sports some interesting “innovations:” Gone is the little pouch in front of you that was stuffed with crash instructions, magazine and barf bagPrevious watches: Here, here, and — obliquely — here.. Instead, the space is now taken up with your knee. The space between the back of your seat and the one in front has been shrunk to exactly the length of a human femur bone. Luckily, the seats no longer recline, so you are in no danger of being bashed in the head by the shiny yellow plastic seatback in front, upon which crash instructions are now afixed in the form of a sticker that takes up most of your field of vision for the duration of your flight. The lack of a barf bag is elegantly rendered moot by upholstering the seats in a dark blue wipeable plastic material.

There are still trays that can be prised from their locked, upright position, though the little plastic thing that holds them up no longer has a hook for a jacket, as my neighbour spent most of the flight figuring out. But these trays waste valuable space too, especially if they go unused for an entire flight. I will write Ryanair and suggest they start using feeding bags. They work fine for horses, and can double as barf bags. Perhaps the oxygen masks, which I’ve never seen used, could be refitted to deliver liquid nutrients. And on a flight from Stansted to Dublin, do we really need toilets? The bus from Victoria Station to the airport didn’t have any, and that trip took much longer. The bus didn’t have cabin crew either. How about having ground staff give the crash course instead of doing it on the plane? What about selling us feeding bags before we embark? And when is the last time you saw two bus drivers sitting up front? Plenty of room for improvement. Literally.