This is what the perfect airline looks like (take note, BA and Ryanair)

Running an airline ought to be a piece of cake. Flog tickets, load the plane with passengers and luggage, pay people to get it safely from A to B, repeat. But don’t the world’s biggest carriers make it look difficult? If they aren’t losing your data to hackers or facing industrial action, they’ll be devising baggage rules that are impossible to understand, assaulting doctors, or calling their loyal customers “idiots”.

So allow me to introduce Utopi-air, the carrier that UK travellers long for.

It’s a low-cost airline. But it will offer more frills than the likes of Ryanair (more on that later). Fares, therefore, will be a little higher. 

Seat “pitch” will be 32 inches, and width will be 18 inches.Legroom on planes has shrunk dramatically in the last few decades. During the so-called “golden age” of flying, 34 inches of pitch (the distance between your seat and the one in front) was the industry standard. Today, BA and easyJet go as low as 29, while some airlines even offer just 28 (step forward Thomas Cook, Spirit, Frontier, Tui, LATAM Brasil, TAP Portugal, Iberia, Thai Airways and Spring Airlines). So let’s meet somewhere in the middle. Thirty-two inches (two more than come as standard with Ryanair, and the minimum offered by Singapore Airlines - recently named the world’s best carrier) sounds fine. Seat width, meanwhile, has fallen from around 19 inches 30 years ago to 17 inches today (again, some airlines go below 17 - introducing United, Delta, American, Air Transat, Nok Air and Saudia). So 18 seems a fair compromise.

To be honest, I’d love to offer hammocks instead of seats - but let’s be realistic.

You can’t pick your own seat. Just like in the good old days, we do that for you. Once you’ve checked in, we’ll give you a seat. Families are guaranteed seats together and, so long as you aren’t among the last few people to check in, you will be seated beside your travelling companions. Just like it used to be.

Needless to say, we will have online check-in, mobile boarding passes and a clever app. But boarding is done in a very novel way. The “WilMA” method, to be precise. That stands for “window, middle, aisle”, and studies have shown it is the quickest way to board (and disembark) a plane. Those with a window seat go first, followed by those in the middle and, finally, those in the aisle. Allowances, of course, will be made for families with young children.

Just one airline, United, has ever put WilMA into practice. Utopi-air will be the second. No more smug “speedy-boarders”.

Baggage. This is a tricky one. One option would be to ban all larger carry-on cases from the cabin. They slow down the boarding process, can hinder emergency evacuations, and the overhead bins aren’t big enough to carry 200 at a time. Permitting only small laptop bags and handbags on board - and making everyone check larger items into the hold - has its merits.

I fear, however, it would not have the backing of most travellers, who have grown accustomed to skipping the check-in desk and love their carry-on cases.

Therefore Utopia-air will permit one carry-on bag, with maximum dimensions of 56cm x 45cm x 25cm but with no weight limit (à la easyJet), but will equip its cabins with bigger bins, namely the Airspace XL by Airbus. Unveiled in 2016, and found on newer models like the A350 and the A320neo, they provide 40 per cent more storage space. How simple. Nobody will have their carry-on cases thrown in the hold.

Checked luggage, however, will cost extra (this budget airline needs to make money, and keep fares down, somehow).

Flights will always leave on time. Well, that’s obvious. Or is it? An airline whose flights are always delayed by exactly three hours might well be preferable. Just hear me out. EU rules entitle passengers to cash compensation of at least €250 if their flight is delayed by three hours or more (so long as “extraordinary circumstances” are not to blame). Imagine the scenario. Your morning flight to Mallorca is hit by a three-hour hold-up, during which time the airline (as it is required to do) gives you free food and drink at the airport - and then, some weeks later, a cheque for €250. You’ve basically been given free flights plus a fair chunk of spending money in return for a few hours kicking your heels at Stansted. Not a bad trade-off.

Of course I jest. Deliberately delaying every departure would mean flight connections, angry businesspeople and a bankrupt airline. Our flights will leave on time, where possible, and if they don’t we’ll be open, honest and pay compensation without fuss where it’s due.

It’s a budget airline, but you get one free tea or coffee. It’s a simple gesture which ought to cost the company very little. Further food and drink will be available to buy on board, but at reasonable prices. This would (hopefully) encourage more sales and therefore make economic sense. And the offerings will be simple and healthy. Fruit, salad, good bread and cheese, dips and antipasti. Dark chocolate. Nothing you can mess up - and no smelly paninis. Booze will be available - but with a far better range than you find on most no-frills flights.

Furthermore, airline passengers produce an estimated five million tonnes of rubbish each year. With few exceptions it ends up being incinerated or thrown into a very deep hole. So edible leftovers will be given to charity and cabins will be a plastic-free zone.

There are three no-brainer seating policies. Firstly, reclining seats will be banned on short-haul services. Secondly, plane seats will line up with windows. I was recently treated to one of those “window” seats that didn’t have a window. It was funny for about five seconds. Thirdly, seats will have Paperclip Armrests - so no more elbow wars.

But should seats face backwards? When sudden deceleration occurs, such as in the event of an accident or emergency landing, rear-facing seats provide far better support for the back, neck and head. That’s why rear-facing baby car seats are now the norm. There are two problems: experts say rear-facing seats would need to be heavier, and would therefore cost more, while a minority of passengers would oppose them. One for the future, perhaps.

One of Utopi-air’s biggest selling points will be free in-flight movies and Wi-Fi access. They will be delivered on iPads, and passengers will be given proper headphones (though not to keep). There will be adverts, of course, because it needs paying for. Most importantly it will be as well maintained as the rest of the plane, so technical faults will be few and far between.   

We will resist the urge to play to the gallery and reject calls for a so-called “fat tax” (too mean), neither will we consider child-free zones (too divisive). But we will provide phone chargers, seat pockets, a decent in-flight mag, and window blinds that open automatically for landing.

We won’t flog you a scratchcard, but we will tell the truth about flight times. We won’t use inconvenient airports dozens of miles from your final destinations, but the crew will always point out places of interest as the plane flies over them.

There’s one thing left to address: the staff. Without a happy team delivering on a consistent basis everything else is pointless. While Utopi-air won’t be able to pay its crew any more than its rivals (it’s a budget airline, after all), perhaps the clear ethos and superior product will make the difference. Who wouldn’t want to work for the low-cost airline that serves up free teas and Wi-Fi? Someone might need to come up with a better name, however.

What would the perfect airline look like to you? What irritates you most about today’s carriers? Let us know using the comment box below.