Flying is so amazing that the United Nations General Assembly have even bestowed a special day upon it. Assembly Resolution A29-1 declared 7 December each year, starting in 1994, as International Civil Aviation Day and it is a day for pilots, stewardesses, air traffic controllers and airport workers to praise the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright by washing down a tiny bag of salted peanuts with a miniature bottle of gin.

I love flying. I love the minutiae from check-in to baggage reclaim. I love watching the screens in Departures for the notification of Boarding and I love the roar of the engines and the thrust of take off. I love it all. Where else can you feel the power of urinating at 30,000 feet? There is no other feeling like unzipping your fly miles above the Earth and wondering if the plane were to crash whether you’d be found with a burnt sausage in your hand.

My first flight was to Jersey, off the coast of NW France, at the age of two and I have no memory of that, although it certainly started me early. During my 28 years I have undertaken almost fifty take offs and fifty landings, thankfully the same number, and still the exhilaration never diminishes. Every flight offers something different to enjoy, whether circling over a cloudless London, eating a surprisingly delicious in-flight meal or eavesdropping fellow passenger’s weird conversations.

The aeroplane is an amazing method of transport that is almost like catching a bus, although the aviatophobics among you may disagree. I can sympathise with people who are scared of flying because I also hate the idea of something ruining this wonderful experience, such as sitting in front of a kid who kicks the back of your chair for the flight’s duration or highly pressurised milk containers exploding over your shirt.

Okay, crashing, exploding, plummeting, or anything that illuminates the seatbelt sign is usually unwelcome. Forget knocking on people’s front doors to spread the word of God or jazzing up Sunday Church services, the way to get people praying is to throw them into some turbulence in the upper atmosphere. My approach has always been via the pilot, meaning that he doesn’t want to die and will do his utmost to ensure his own safety…it has worked so far.

A friend once told me that if God had meant man to fly, He would never have given us Spanish air traffic control, although he is one of the 20% of all air travellers that have experienced flight phobia. Another good friend who also dislikes flying was sat next to me on a flight to Lapland and I just observed the fact that there might be ice on the runway; the colour drained from his face. Remember, flying isn’t dangerous. Crashing is.

READ MORE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION DAY HERE