The first time I flew to the United States, nearly sixty years ago, the trip took over twenty four hours. Our plane, a Lockheed Constellation of American Overseas Airlines, took off from a small row of sheds called Heathrow.

Two hours later we landed at Shannon on the west coast of Ireland. Here we waited for nearly four hours, during which time we were fed cups of tea and soggy biscuits. From Shannon we bumped and tossed across the north Atlantic until we came down through the fog at the military airbase called Gander, which was located in the wilds of Labrador. Here again we stayed for over four hours before setting off on our final leg to Boston.

I recount this gut-wrenching saga not simply to show how ancient I am, but also to let you know how lucky you are. Today you have a choice of airlines, of aircraft and of classes. The only choice you no longer have is whether to fly by the late and deeply lamented Concorde.

But recently yet another choice has been granted to us poor benighted travellers who wish to fly to the Big Apple. No longer need we face the hell which is Heathrow or the god-forsaken Gatwick. Instead we can choose the rural calm of Stansted. Stansted may once have been a quite little backwater set among the rolling fields of Essex, but today it is at least as unpleasant as either of the other two main London airports. Indeed in some ways it is far worse since, like a hyper-active teenager, it has grown too fast and is now bursting at the seams.

But for me at least Stansted has one massive advantage, it is less than half an hour from where I lay my head at night.

Which explains why at 4pm one afternoon this spring, a shiny BMW saloon arrived at my front door. Half an hour later I was being greeted at Stansted by a pleasant young man who took my suitcase and ushered me to a check-in desk where – to my amazement – I found no queue. Five minutes later I was whizzed though the Fast Track security channel and sniggered inwardly at the serried lines of the Ryanair cattle class who sometimes (such is Stansted’s unpreparedness) have to stand in line for half an hour before being frisked by some heavy-handed lump.

How was I able to by-pass the rest of humanity with such ease and elegance? Simply because I was flying to New York with an airline called Eos. And Eos is different. Very different indeed.

My first glimpse of Eos was its own dedicated lounge at Stansted. This was not, I must admit, an overwhelmingly happy experience. It was small, crowded and verged on the tatty. I noticed, however, that they are the process of building a new lounge. It can’t come soon enough.

The plane in which I flew to JFK was a very different story. For their three flights a day Eos use a fleet of Boeing 757s in which all the 250 normal seats have been removed and instead a mere 48 have been installed in their place. Each of these occupies a small compartment containing the main seat and also a small bench opposite on which your spouse, buddy or colleague can sit and eat a meal with you. But what makes Eos special is the fact that each of the seats converts into a lie-flat bed. The beds are two abreast and are cleverly staggered so you do not have to spend the trip looking at your neighbour from very close quarters.

The cabin is decorated in a variety of cool grey colours and the overall impression was certainly as good as – and in some respects better than – either BA Business Class or Virgin Upper Class. The service too left nothing to be desired. A staggeringly attractive and very tall stewardess made me a happy man. I assumed she was Ethiopian but she assured me that her entire family hailed from the borough of Queens.

Shortly after take-off we were presented with our own personal entertainment unit which was like a small laptop complete with excellent Bose earphones. I was slightly unhappy that there was no map on which we could see where we were flying but this, I must admit, was my only grouse.

At least when I ordered a Bloody Mary it came with a spicy zip to it and not – as is usually the case on BA - simply tomato juice with a dash of Worcester sauce. The dinner menu was limited to two choices of fish and meat but it was well served and the wine was re-filled with dazzling speed.

I took what I thought was a brief nap on my flat bed and was woken as we approached a very stormy Kennedy Airport. New York was in the process of enduring the wettest 24 hours for over a century, with 8 inches of rain falling within the day. Quite how we managed to land will for ever remain a mystery but, after circling bumpily for three quarters of an hour, land we did.

Once on the ground we were squirted through heavy traffic to a cool and clearly fashionable boutique hotel named Chambers on 56th street just west of Fifth Avenue. Forty years earlier I had lived on the same block, some ten yards from the hotel (which was then merely a parking lot). By the time we arrived it was after midnight, so there was only time for a bourbon on the rocks before bedtime. My room on the 15th floor offered a spectacular view of midtown Manhattan.

The next morning I was allowed off the leash by my Eos minders and thus took the opportunity to do some shopping. My task was made easier by the fact that that day for the first time in fifteen years the dollar had sunk to a rate of two to the pound sterling. It was, as a result, hard not to buy everything.

Lunch was provided at one of Manhattan’s gastronomic landmarks, the 21 Club on West 52nd Street. There in the corner was Robert Wagner (former husband of Natalie Wood) and on the other side in the shadows I spotted Ed Koch, former mayor of New York. I enjoyed two exceptional bloody marys before tucking in to a totally uncooked meal consisting of a dozen oysters followed by steak tartare.

After a repast of this size I wobbled back to the Chambers where I snoozed in the lobby beside an open fire until it was time to return to the airport. The rush hour traffic meant that the journey to JFK took over an hour, but here again the Eos service cut in beautifully. I was escorted from the kerbside to the check-in and thence through Security to the lounge which Eos shares with Emirates Airlines.