Airbus

Over a generation, air travel has been transformed from being very expensive and very special to - since the advent of budget airlines - almost the mundane. The name of Europe's leading airplane manufacturer sums things up: Airbus. We should never forget that air travel really is special; and perhaps we should begin to treat it as such. Not only are the 'through the porthole' visual effects often spectacular - although perhaps 'frequent flyers' have become bored by them - but our increasingly crowded human presence above the clouds raises questions about the environmental viability of life beneath them. At some point air travel may become expensive once again, in which case these pictures of to-ing and fro-ing through thin air may provide us with a comfort for what we have lost. We aspired to be creatures of the air but, like Icarus, we risk falling back to earth.