THE (badly worded) sign at the First Choice Airways counter at Gatwick’s North Terminal hinted at the desperation of all around: “Assaults on staff: verbal abuse, physical abuse, threats against staff. These are forms of assaults that will not be tolerated. Should you choose to ignore this, you may face prosecution.”

When I arrived to catch a flight with First Choice to Egypt last week, I assumed that something had gone terribly wrong at Gatwick. Outside, long lines of agitated passengers with trolleys piled with bags stretched out of the entrance and along the pavement, reminding me of old Soviet bread queues. Inside, it was absolutely packed, and I mean totally jammed - an effort just to move over to see your check-in desk number on the departure board.

Nigerians with vast cases edged by Brits dressed in sombreros headed for Malaga, with about as much room to move as a Tube carriage at rush hour. It was hot, sweaty and very unpleasant indeed. No wonder signs were required to placate those who might be tempted to boil over with frustration.

An American I overheard passing by said to her friend: “This is freakin’ unbelievable.”

Which was how I, and many others, felt too. Yet when I asked an official wearing a yellow shirt with “I” for information marked on it what the problem was, he replied: “Problem? What problem? This is normal.”

When I heard this week’s criticisms of Heathrow airport, my initial reaction was: “Yes, it’s terrible there, but it’s just about as bad everywhere else.”

My Gatwick experience followed hot on the heels of terrible scrums at Heathrow (particularly Terminal Three, which increasingly reminds me of a Third World marketplace), Stansted and Luton.

While I have become familiar with long waits for passport control at Stansted — often finding myself piling off the train that takes you from your plane to crowds waiting for the checkpoints before the baggage carousels — a recent experience at Luton airport is etched indelibly in my mind.

Disembarking from a recent late-night easyJet flight from Berlin, I noticed that quite a few other easyJet planes had arrived at the same time. I didn’t think anything of it. But then we got to passport control.

Down a ten metre wide passageway at least a thousand people (probably more, it’s always hard to judge crowds), were in a jam heading for a bank of counters, with just one in two desks manned by immigration officers. The queue took about an hour, with people all around me muttering oaths, sweating profusely and generally looking as those they’d rather be just about anywhere else on earth than then were then.

Yet a man to my right seemed totally calm. He was a business traveller who regularly used Luton. “It’s always like this at this time of night,” he said matter-of-factly, with just a hint of a sigh. “I don’t like it, but I’ve got used to it.”

With the enormous growth in flying expected in Britain over the next few years — numbers of passengers are expected to double to 470 million by 2030, according to Government predictions — it’s only likely to get worse.

Yes, T5 at Heathrow may be on the way, but it looks inevitable that we will just have to get used to the cramped, unpleasant conditions so vilified this week by the International Air Transport Association and London’s mayor Ken Livingstone, who described Heathrow as “a ghastly shopping mall”.

That was a perfect description. When it takes a good half an hour to queue to buy a magazine at WH Smith at Heathrow (as I recently found), the word “ghastly” definitely springs to mind.

And with Eurostar soon to open up faster links from St Pancras into Europe, so does the phrase: “Maybe I’ll go by train next time.”

Times recommends

• Oasis of the Seas: the Times review
• The 20 best new year party places to stay
• Green Spaces 2009: are you the winning writer?