1. When you do it a lot, you smell of plane.
  2. People tell you how big your carbon footprint is.
  3. Its defencelessness in the face of bad weather, volcanoes and “acts of God”.
  4. You book the flight yourself, online, and buy the wrong ticket… and you can’t get a refund.
  5. Or you buy the right ticket, but twice… and can’t get a refund.
  6. And whatever you paid, you can guarantee the guy next to you paid less.
  7. A last-minute plane change means the slick new business class seat you had been looking forward to trying out is actually an old version from the 1980s.
  8. The plane is so decrepit that it rattles as it goes down the runway.
  9. There’s no room for your cabin baggage because everyone has exceeded their own allowance.
  10. Or you are told you have exceeded yours, and have to check it in.
  11. You look out of the window and see your suitcase being thrown on to the plane as if it were a beach ball.
  12. Or it doesn’t make it on to the plane at all.
  13. There is always one passenger who’s late, and delays you.
  14. The person next to you has a cough. Or sniffs. Or breathes through their mouth. A bad sign on a night flight.
  15. And they want to talk to you.
  16. But then they get upgraded just before take-off.
  17. No one greets you on board, offers to take your coat or gives you a drink.
  18. There are crumbs all over your seat and butter on the remote control.
  19. The only seats left to select were the middle ones, or by the washrooms.
  20. Or by the bassinets, which are occupied by babies with extreme colic.
  21. Or by the galley, and it’s a night flight so you have to put up with inane chat from the crew while trying to sleep.
  22. The “noise-cancelling” headphones provided don’t cancel anything.
  23. Having boarded on time, you are stuck on the tarmac for an hour.
  24. Just before take-off, you’re told there is a fault and that maintenance are trying to locate a spare part.
  25. Boring safety demonstrations. Can’t they jazz it up a bit? Like Cebu Pacific.
  26. On long haul, the in-flight entertainment doesn’t work.
  27. Or having seen the films on offer, isn’t worth turning on.
  28. The music selection hasn’t been updated since the eighties.
  29. The flight map doesn’t work, or shows a different route, so you worry you got on the wrong plane.
  30. Or doesn’t have an English translation, so you are left trying to work out your flight status in Mandarin.
  31. Your plane has mobile phone technology, and the person next to you thinks it’s good to talk.
  32. The child behind you keeps kicking your seat, and their parents don’t seem to mind.
  33. Or they tell them off too aggressively, making everyone feel uncomfortable.
  34. You get up to go to the washroom and are blocked by trolleys in both directions.
  35. People in lower classes keep using your washrooms, and crew do nothing to stop them.
  36. When you finally get into one, someone bangs on the door just as you’re getting comfortable.
  37. You look in the mirror before you come out and see the cabin pressure has aged you by a decade.
  38. And you feel so dehydrated that your eyes, nose and throat feel like sandpaper.
  39. In business, the “fully- flat” bed is angled lie-flat so you slide down it and wake under the footrest.
  40. While wearing the ridiculous beige sleep suit they have given you.
  41. The bed has been designed for midgets.
  42. The fleece blanket doesn’t cover your toes, and gives you a static shock when you get out of your seat.
  43. You wake up aching everywhere.
  44. In economy class, the window seat you requested is occupied by a heavy drinker with a weak bladder.
  45. The person in front reclines their seat fully, even though it’s a day flight.
  46. Or the seats don’t recline at all.
  47. The legroom is so poor that you knock your neighbour out while trying to get into your flight socks.
  48. The person beside you informs you that the shared armrest is theirs.
  49. Then leans over your lap to look at the view.
  50. You nod off, then realise you’ve been leaning on their shoulder.
  51. And you’ve been dribbling.
  52. Imperious cabin crew who talk to you like you’re a child and take half an hour to come when you press the button for service.
  53. The food service takes two hours to complete even though you’re on a six-hour night flight and need to get some sleep.
  54. Your first choice of meal isn’t available.
  55. There is no choice.
  56. Your travel manager has booked you on a dry airline.
  57. There is one red and one white wine available, and both are paint stripper, served warm, in plastic.
  58. The “champagne” is Prosecco.
  59. The menu described the meal incorrectly. What it should have said was: “Grey, misshapen substance, not edible.”
  60. But you eat it anyway, because it’s in front of you, even though you ate in the lounge as well. And then you feel sick.
  61. And you drink more wine than you should, because they offered it, and you feel hungover an hour later.
  62. In economy, the crew parade the business class meals past you on their way from the galley.
  63. Your vegetarian “special” has ham in it.
  64. The meal is served with silly little metal knives with stubby rounded ends. Or plastic cutlery that breaks when you try to slice anything.
  65. You’ve been promised a breakfast snack and get a three-day old croissant and a coffee with UHT milk.
  66. And the sachet explodes all over your suit when you try to open it.
  67. You can’t smoke but there is an ashtray in the armrest, just to tempt you.
  68. You feel nauseous after putting on too many nicotine patches.
  69. You can’t work out how to get the tray table out of your armrest, let alone back in.
  70. Then when you’ve finally got it assembled, it bounces like a trampoline when you attempt to type on your laptop.
  71. Your laptop battery dies an hour into the flight and there is no in-seat power.
  72. In business, the amenity kit has moisturiser but no ear plugs.
  73. In economy, your neighbour has 30 years of over-eating under his belt and it’s spilling into your seat.
  74. It’s a night flight but the lights aren’t turned off.
  75. You suddenly get an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia, and you’re only two hours into a long-haul flight.
  76. Air rage.
  77. The cabin temperature is always too hot or too cold, but never just right.
  78. There is so much turbulence that you start to wonder if you’ve updated your will.
  79. When it stops, the seatbelt sign stays on for ages, and you need the loo.
  80. Ceaseless engine noise.
  81. People who do lunging exercises in the aisle because they “need to stretch”.
  82. Pages ripped out of in-flight magazines.
  83. Boredom-induced purchases from the in-flight duty free.
  84. Guilt-induced purchases from duty free (you were away for their birthday again).
  85. You have to use the sick bag but it’s so old the bottom has worn away.
  86. Trying to calculate what time it will be when you land and how many hours’ sleep you should try to get, or if you should sleep at all.
  87. Thinking about what else you could be doing with the money you spent on your ticket.
  88. Worrying about ticking the wrong box on your arrival form.
  89. Someone opens their window shade just as the sun comes up, blinding you.
  90. The crew turn off the in-flight entertainment ten minutes before the end of your film.
  91. You arrive on time but then have to circle the airport for half an hour because there is no slot available to land.
  92. Or you’re delayed and the captain is over-familiar and makes a joke about how he’ll be late home for tea. Just fly the plane, goddammit.
  93. The landing resembles a kamikaze mission.
  94. People applaud when you touch down.
  95. Then jump up and open the overhead bins before the seatbelt sign is turned off, knocking you out.
  96. It’s raining when you arrive.
  97. When you turn your phone back on, dozens of emails and voicemails flood in for you to deal with.
  98. You’re kept waiting ages before you can get off the plane.
  99. And it is designed in such a way that people in lower classes get to disembark before you.
  100. Jet lag.
  101. And then there’s the airports – but that’s a whole other 101 things to complain about… (Look out for the next in the series, “101 things we don’t like about airports”.)