Leader: Holidays at an airport forecast, so no new ideas there

Let's lift our eyes momentarily from harsh frosts and horrid frozen slush and dream of sun-blessed golden sand under azure skies where the only ice you have worry about is whether there is enough of it in your drink.

Trend forecasters, perhaps under the influence of a few pina coladas, have been speculating that the holidays of the future might mean a whole lot more than a stay in a villa or a hotel.

Resorts of the future might be huge airships equipped with apartments, bars and restaurants. Or if that doesn't take your fancy, how about an aqua-village floating resort, powered by energy from the sun, waves, wind and tides, floating about on the ocean blue from one exotic destination to another.

Of course, rooms of the future will be naturally cooled by green foliage outside while water from basins and showers flushes the loo. Tourism's detrimental environmental effects might be further reduced by algae-based fuels powering jet engines.

Why, they gaily conjecture, airports might become destinations in their own right with cinemas, hotels and restaurants.

Just a moment. What with strikes and other disruptions, aren't a lot of us already spending most of our holidays at the airport? Back to Earth and grim reality.