Ever worried about being stranded at the Airport between flights? Tom Hanks stars in Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal".

All of us from time to time will find ourselves in an airport waiting for a flight. Perhaps it's our flight, or we are with others who are flying.

I often advise clients to head out to their airport and watch it in action, to become familiar with its pace and activities. It's a great place to do some interesting people watching, as well as pick up the ambience of flying in preparation for one's own. I often ask clients to visit check-in areas, gates and concourses, and other areas of interest as if they are flying. Some people find it useful, while most say they enjoy going to the airport - as long as they are not flying that day!

Not long ago, a story was circulating that Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) had become home to a passenger when red tape prevented him from leaving the country, leaving him stranded at the airport for... years! The story started in 1988 when... well, I'll let the Internet Movie Database take up the story...

"Merhan Nasseri, an Iranian refugee... landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after being denied entry into England because his passport and United Nations refugee certificate had been stolen. French authorities would not let him leave the airport, and there stayed, in Terminal One, a stateless person with nowhere else to go. He has since been granted permission to either enter France or return to his own country. He instead chooses to continue to live in the terminal and tell his story to those who will listen."

This story has become the substance of a mock documentary and now a film which opened this week in the US, starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and a favourite, Stanley Tucci. Directed by Steven Spielberg, and set in a fictional US airport (but presumably New York's JFK), it was filmed in California on a giant purpose-built film set.

The Spielberg film explores the psychology of being stranded, but the story merely uses Nasseri's predicament as its starting point. You can read more about the story at the Snopes Urban Legends site here. Of course this is not the first time Tom Hanks has played a FedEx exployee stranded after an airline incident, if you recall "Castaway".

The film, called The Terminal, features an amazing filmset using three levels, and it and the film, together with trailers, can be seen at this wonderful official website here.

So next time your flight is delayed and you think it's a nuisance, know that truly it can get worse for some people! In fact, if you are ever caught having to sleep at an airport, due to weather, missed connections, or whatever, you'll be happy to know there is the Skytrax website devoted specifically to sleeping in such places! Go here to have a look.

And if you want to read travellers' reviews of airports around the world, the Skytrax website maintains a forum for its readers' no-holds barred opinions here. The various reviews are from travellers who have slept their way around the world, so to speak!

By the way, I have passed through CDG De Gaulle Airport a few times. In my humble opinion, its initial architectural elegance and faux-futuristic look have long ago passed their used-by dates. It seemed to me when I last visited in the summer of 2002 that its internals were particularly unattractive. I was so thankful I had an opportunity to relax before a flight to Heathrow (LHR) in British Midland's lounge. A report in this week's (July 10) Australian Financial Review looks at Nasseri's story in more detail, suggesting his not leaving the airport may be more the result of mental and physical health problems. I don't think living in CDG's environs would do anyone's health much good at all. Given the choice, I would rather transit Europe via Frankfurt or London, than Paris CDG.

As a psychologist who also works in domains other than fear of flying, there is quite a lot that I could say about the psychological factors bound up with Nasseri's plight - by the way, he is also referred to in various sites as "Sir Alfred". While he has been offered some payment for his story being developed into a movie, his status has not allowed him to open a bank account and access his royalties. No doubt as the movie receives a wider audience, more people will become interested in the story and the man himself.

Some have even sought him out to speak with him, and from accounts on the web, he has so far enjoyed his most recent media exposure due to the film. If you want to read more you could do worse than head to this site, and discover more for yourself. Let us hope all this extra attention does no harm to "Sir Alfred".