Forget the try-hard gimmicks – just give us travel that works

Confusing for tourists, childish, and diverting resources badly needed elsewhere – isn’t it time to stop these silly stunts?

We are well into September now, which is when die-hard Harry Potter fans traditionally gather at London’s King’s Cross Station to hear the faux announcement that is made for the Hogwarts Express; departing from Platform 9¾ at 11am on the 1st. 
This year, to their dismay, these five seconds of glee were cancelled by Warner Bros Discovery in favour of an online event with I’m a Celebrity! winner Sam Thompson (never heard of him? Me neither) instead. The crowd at King’s Cross booed. You might tell them – as franchise star Miriam Margolyes sniped at adult fans of the movies several months ago – to “grow up”.
I happen to see no harm in these playful stunts, so long as they don’t get in the way of my commute. Travel companies seem to love them though, regardless of whether they disrupt our lives. 
Take last year’s London Fashion Week, which saw TfL temporarily rename its busy Bond Street station, signage and all, “Burberry Street” in accordance with an ad partnership – much to the confusion of tourists and locals alike. “Some poor elderly man just asked me in a panic if he’d missed Bond Street, three stops past,” one of our reporters stated at the time. “This must happen hundreds of times a day.” 
My mother was reminded of her 1993 trip to Russia, when former leader Boris Yeltsin had renamed a clutch of street names in Moscow, and everyone was very lost. It’s one thing when it’s the end of an era in Russia, arguably, and quite another when it’s a fashion house.
Marketing gaffes such as TfL’s have long been causing us problems, of course. During the 1960s, a United Airlines campaign dubbed “take me along” encouraged business flyers to bring their wives on corporate trips with them at discounted rates. It seriously backfired when wives started receiving “thank-you” letters from United regarding flights they’d never taken. Extramarital affairs were revealed. United lost a lot of frequent flyers.
Today, when travel companies aren’t wasting money on weird ads and events, they are regularly making enemies of their customers by employing “trendy” (and in many cases, snarky) social media teams to handle complaints in lieu of helpful agents. In all seriousness though, if brands have cash to fritter on appearing (and often failing) to look cool, I’d like to see at least some of it redistributed to gimmicks that actually solve problems. Allow me to suggest a couple.
First up, pedestrian fast lanes, please. Everywhere, ideally, to syphon off dawdlers from those of us with purpose or in a hurry, but at the very least on public transport. It’s been done before. In 2014, in response to a 10-year-old girl from Sheffield who wrote a letter to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre about slow walkers being “so annoying I want to scream”, the mall actually installed – in a temporary PR move – two lanes. 
In China, there’s a 100ft stretch of pavement dedicated to phone starers at a theme park in Chongqing called “Foreigner Street”, which gives me some hope for the future of crowd control. 
And how about pre-reclined plane seats, to settle once and for all, the maddening debate as to whether one should or should not make use of that function on a long-haul flight? I am fervently of the opinion that a reclined seat is more comfortable – it just is – and that the problem is solely with the passengers who refuse to partake. 
What sort of self-flagellating martyr sits like a plank for hours on end, ignoring the only button at their fingertips which provides respite, in fear of annoying a stranger? If everyone in the economy cabin held such a puritanical attitude, you’d have rows and rows of people sitting like planks for the entirety of a flight. If, on the other hand, the recline function was automatic, and kicked in shortly after take-off, you’d have rows and rows of people sitting more comfortably, and no one with diminished space. 
Arguably, as gimmicks go, this would not be a cheap one. Were Boeing to launch it, however, I would forgive all its prior transgressions and be loyal to them forever more.
But if these corporate giants are going to keep ignoring what we actually want in favour of childish games, I’d at least appreciate some decent humour. Forget British Airways, with its multimillion-pound rebrands and passive-aggressive approach to customer service, and give me Ryanair, which has at least never pretended to be anything but disdainful when it comes to the comfort of its patrons.
“Ryanair, what are your rules for tall people sitting on planes where the legs don’t fit in normal seats?” one traveller once posted to the airline’s X account. “Bend your knees”, was the response. Another classic: a customer by the moniker of “Ryan Meaney” ranted, “F—–g hell, can we just fly already please?” To which the budget carrier’s X agent replied: “Only if you’re Ryan Nicey.” 
See? Better a twitch of a smile than a roll of the eyes.