For the stressed out traveller, they are the last, and ultimate, sanctuary: a small piece of completely private personal space high in the clouds where you can sit down, rest your aching limbs, dangle your arms under cool running water and peer at your pallid reflection in the mirror while squeezing a blackhead.
The aircraft toilet is the nearest thing to heaven, particularly when you are flying Ryanair, which is why Michael O'Leary's wheeze to charge £1 to visit this on-board nirvana is such a brilliant one. The Ryanair chief executive told BBC1 Breakfast news that the no-frills airline was "looking" at "the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future".
Consumer champions and Ryanair's rivals have reacted with predictable sneers of outrage. Which? Holiday magazine said Ryanair was "plumbing the depths" and "putting profit before the comfort of its customers." EasyJet said it had no plans to charge passengers to use its toilets: "Inflation appears to have gone crazy if it now costs £1 to spend a penny," said a spokesman.
What's the problem?
I would gladly pay a quid to have a couple of minutes of quality mid-air me-time. Those little toilet trips are bliss. Although Ryanair's loos don't boast that cheap and very drinkable moisturiser, you can still while away minutes fiddling with the taps and following the instructions to wipe the basin spotlessly clean "for the consideration of other passengers" (I've always felt very inconsidered when I enter an aircraft toilet with a basin full of whiskers and shaving foam and toothpaste suds.) Then there's flushing the loo. Whoosh! What an event! If I leave the toilet seat up will I get sucked out into the clouds?
We all know Ryanair's business model by now and we all know it isn't that cheap by the time you've paid all the extras - for your hold luggage, for your place in the boarding queue, for your scratch card, for your expensive on-board snack and to use your mobile on the plane. So we choose to fly Ryanair with our eyes open. (And our noses closed, when cashless passengers are forced to take emergency measures in the sick bag.)
Long gone are the days when it was considered a basic human right for travellers to visit any toilet and not pay for the privilege. From Paddington to Brighton, plenty of railway stations in Britain have been charging to use their toilets for years. Most cost about 20p but I paid 50 cents to go to the bathroom at Salzburg railway station recently.
We seem perfectly happy forking out for other things that used to be free, such as parking and water without plotting to overthrow the system. Capitalism rewards our meek loyalty by handing us free stuff that used to be paid for, like newspapers and music. And it rewards O'Leary with shedloads of lucre every week, as other airlines go to the wall.
