Several hours into a laptopand paperback-free journey, the average passenger will probably reach page 97 and the Pilot of the Month feature (the airline equivalent of Playmate of the Month, only less racy). High Life's August 'captain with cachet' is David Norris-Warton. "Do you enjoy being based at Gatwick?" he is asked. "Yes, it is a lovely airport to fly from, with few delays."

Passengers whose flights from the Sussex airport were very late or cancelled in the past 10 days have not been amused. BA passengers are now allowed to take through the central search area this copy of the Sunday Tribune or any other publication of their choosing.

But, since the discovery of an alleged terrorist plot to attack aircraft flying from Britain to the US, and the extraordinary events that followed, travellers are rapidly reassessing their priorities.

Our leading airports have resembled refugee camps rather than gateways to the world. For thousands of weekenders, a short hop to an alluring European city became a long battle with overstretched infrastructure and misinformed personnel. Transatlantic journeys these days can be longer than Alcock and Brown 1919 flight, by the time Homeland Security and a stray mobile phone have disrupted the journey.

"Is your journey really necessary?" is now planted in the mind of every traveller who previously flew on a whim, a wing and a prayer. Where and how we travel 10 years from now is sure to be shaped by the impact of the meltdown at Heathrow airport.

For a decade, many of us have concluded that the future will be orange, in the shape of EasyJet and its emulators.

The no-frills revolution in the skies, which began at Luton airport on a bleak November day in 1995, has transformed our perceptions of Europe . . .and, starting this summer, north Africa and western Asia, now both on the low-cost map.

With Easy Jet, Ryanair and new competitors BA urging us to take everything for the weekend in the cabin, we've grown used to a flying start.

No longer. Between 31 July and this morning, BA passengers have experienced no fewer than five different cabinbaggage regimes. The future of the average "suitcase-onwheels", designed to be rolled on board, looks bleak. The dimensions of the single piece of baggage allowed through central search have been fixed at less than half the volume of the internationally agreed maximum, and the average wheelie-bag busts the British Department for Transport's limits.

Given the absurd inconsistencies that previously prevailed, the "one-piece, no compromise on dimensions" policy must surely continue for a decade. And, as anything from cosmetics to toothpaste is outlawed, you had better get re-acquainted with that baggage carousel . . . or contemplate alternatives to fast and furious travel, now that it is no longer fast, merely furious.

Promiscuous weekending has become the norm because the rising number of "time rich, cash poor" travellers has coincided with a rapid expansion of airline networks to embrace 'places you never knew you wanted to go'.

No matter that you got ripped off in Reykjavik or rained on in Rzeszow . . . next Friday you could be wheeling your suitcase around another city whose name you can't pronounce and that is probably nowhere near the airport anyway.

Not any more. Air travel has become, by an order of magnitude, less comfortable and less predictable. One positive result could be that the average flyer's sense of value returns. Our frenzy of superficial sightseeing could be superseded by more thoughtful destinations and more profound exploration when we arrive.

For the first time, three enemies of casual aviation are in alignment: oil prices (high), stress (intense) and concern about the planet (growing).

Ten years from now, August 2006 may be looked on as the tipping point where we began to seek more from travel than a 29 flight.

The first refuge of the frustrated flyer has been the railway: GNER and Virgin Trains are gleeful about the business they have picked up between England and Scotland in the past five days, while Eurostar says it has been attracting new customers at a rate of 7,000 a day. For Irish visitors hoping to travel to France, the tunner may be the way to go.

The cross-Channel train operator has full baggage screening (within a 15-minute check-in time) but neither confiscates toothpaste nor makes nursing mothers taste their infants' bottled milk. From next autumn, the travel time from London St Pancras to Brussels will be one hour and 51 minutes, and two hours and 15 minutes to Paris Gare du Nord, with connections to Europe's rapidly expanding network of high-speed trains.

The six-hour rail journey from Waterloo to Provence may not compare with a 90minute hop from Heathrow, but the benefit of the railways is that almost all the time on board can pass productively (for business travellers), happily (for holiday-makers) or both (for travel writers). One hazard lurks, however: the tighter aviation security becomes, the more tempting a target the railways present to terrorists.

The longer the trip you plan, the less consequential the time it takes to get there is. Exhibit A is France . . . which manages the neat trick of being both the most alluring nation in the world, in terms of visitor numbers, and the most popular destination for the French themselves. As Irish motorists who unwittingly found themselves gridlocked on the Autoroute du Soleil on 29 July will have discovered, Parisians depart en famille, en voiture et en masse to the south on the last Saturday of July. The day to avoid northbound is 26 August, when the arrondisements will suddenly receive a massive increase in inhabitants.

During the four intervening weeks, this wave of cultured people constitute a barmy army of holidaymakers who extract maximum indulgence and enjoyment from the tiny universes they create on la plage or in la campagne, where they forge civilised relationships with the local baker, grocer and restaurateur. We may find that the world looks better the closer you get and the longer you stay . . . and rediscover the joys of several weeks in an Irish seaside resort or country cottage.

Even travellers whose horizons begin in Beijing are being urged to make fewer trips and stay longer. You might imagine that Mark Ellingham and Tony Wheeler, founders of Rough Guide and Lonely Planet respectively, are never happier than when you and I are haring across Asia or Africa, laden with a library of guidebooks.

They may have been the midwives of independent travel, but they are attuned to the harm unrestrained tourism can do. Both now urge travellers to make fewer trips and spend longer at the destination: less can be much more. I think most of us believe we could improve our relations with host communities if we took the time . . . which should also make us culturally more sensitive and financially more generous.

After the chaos at Heathrow our habits may shift radically. And Captain Norris-Warton and his hardpressed airline colleagues must be pondering the future of travel . . . and their part in it, if any. "I enjoy spending time with my family, and sailing, " he says. Just as well, Captain.