I’m celebrating my 18th.

That’s not my 18th birthday; it’s my 18th trip ‘across the Pond’.

Having lived in California for 16 of the best years of my life, my trips there used a variety of routes. But none were easy, as the lack of direct flights means faffing about.

I yield to no one in praise of East Lothian living but it does have one flaw: international travel. We’re on the wrong side of the Capital to have easy access to its airport and such international air links as Scotland enjoys are scattered over four airports from Prestwick to Aberdeen.

But only EDI and GLA offer direct USA flights – and those to New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. My 18 trips tried all of those. Others started with a short hop to Heathrow, Gatwick or a continental hub. No trip was under 18 hours total; most involved a two-day trip and hotel to avoid fatigue on top of jet-lag.

Last week, I boarded a split-new Boeing 787-B Dreamliner at Gatwick for this 18th trip. Equipped with touch screens in each seat back, as well as films, games, music, etc, you can call up a cockpit view of the flight.

As we crossed Rathlin Island at 40,000ft, East Lothian was visible to the right. It had taken me more than 24 hours to be almost back where I started!

Any flight to California passes somewhere near here. And the question came to me: why does Scotland not rationalise its international flights from a single hub, as the Dutch have done with Schiphol, offering direct flights to NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston, Houston, Detroit, LA, Atlanta, Washington, etc? The Scandinavians have done the same with Copenhagen. Both act as hubs feeding flights in from over Europe. Then virtually all those flights pass Scotland to get there.

A single hub on a rail line near Falkirk could offer one hour shorter transatlantic flights cheaper than the Dutch or Heathrow and supercharge Scottish tourism. And – in case you think Scots would be too poor/wee to invest – the $200m Dreamliner I was on was flown by Norwegian Airlines.

Or, if that’s too ambitious for your taste, why not persuade Stelios or O’Leary to re-open East Fortune for low-cost airlines? With the A1 two miles away and a station re-opened for East Coast HSTs, locals could hop on a plane easier than getting to Edinburgh – and steal a chunk of Tyneside’s traffic while we’re at it.