I used love flying Easyjet.
Oh the happy days when I could look down at those poor uninitiated still struggling on Ryanair, landing in the middle of nowhere, being charged even for existing, being sold stuff on board every 5 seconds…
But no such stuff would happen on Easyjet, no, for about the same money you could use main airports, board an earlier flight for free, basically feel like a human being. Oh joy.
Easyjet was friendly, efficient, simple and orange. Not only that, their customer service was impeccable. When my flight was cancelled for bad weather a couple of years ago and had to go home and then return to the airport the following day, they refunded me the train. When I was delayed on one of their flights and missed a connection, they refunded me the fare for the new flight. Brilliant.
I was so entusiastic I join the Easyjet plus scheme, that gives you automatic priority boarding. I’d travel Easyjet all the time and reccommend it to anyone I knew.
Then something changed.
First I began to notice how every time I’d fly at peak time the flight would be delayed because people couldn’t find space in the overhead lockers. Arguments followed, with crew members forcing passengers to surrender their HAND luggage and place it in the hold. Now everyone knows that people travel with hand luggage not because they love lagging a trolley through the airport but because they are in a rush. People pack light to avoid the waiting at the carousel. Nobody wants to be forced to place a luggage in the hold, it disrupts plans.
However, at first I didn’t pay it too much attention. First I blamed Christmas, and people buying extra presents at the airport duty free. Then I assumed some passengers had been greedy and had occupied other people overhead space with coats and stuff that wasn’t supposed to go there.
But after a while it was obvious something was up. The arguments between passengers and crew due to lack of overhead lockers became standard.
Not only that, about a year ago I started noticing messages being played at the gate, inviting “volunteers” to hand in their hand luggage in return for free speedy boarding – a ridiculous bargain, the only point of boarding first being the ability of taking your bag and getting off the plane and out of the airport as fast as possible. If I must wait for my suitcase to be delivered in dont care where I’m sitting…
Obviously nobody volunteers, with the exception of some pensioner attracted by the idea of a window seat, so the shenanigans on the flight kept happening.
Then at the end of last year a big announcement: Easyjet has now assigned seat! Wow, hurray, no need to rush to the gate to board first, you can actually select your place… How cool.
Mow, what would you assume if you read that?
Yes, right, that from now on you could go back to those golden times of travelling when one could relax at the duty free and then stroll to the gate, happy in the knowledge that their place will be waiting for them. At no time would you think, HEY, THEY HAVE ASSIGNED ME A SEAT? BUT WOULD A SPACE FOR MY HANDLUGGAGE COME WITH IT?
Well of course now, because even since air travelling began, room to suite a small bag was considered the very very minimum comfort company had to offer. We pay for check in, we pay for food and drinks, at least allow us to keep our personal belongings close…
But no.
The truth is your seat is guaranteed on Easyjet but that’s the only thing.
You might have thought paying for speedy boarding would become obsolete once your seat had been allocated but you’re wrong. Speedy boarding is in fact a handluggage storage fee. Because with your seat, on Easyjet you don’t get ANYTHING else. Certainly NO GUARANTEED OVERHEAD ROOM. For that, you’ll have to PAY.
I expect soon they’ll start for oxygen too. It’s only a natural step. Hey, we sold you a seat, nowhere on the website did we say air was included!!!
Last time I bought a ticket on a Malpensa-Luton flight, it wasn’t for me but for my sister. Who arrived at the gate with plenty of time but TRUSTING your advert saying “stress free experience thanks to allocated seats”, kindly allowed passengers with kids to board first. Only to discover, when she arrived on the plane, that there was no place for her TINY case. Useless was her pleading with the crew to move some of the coats occupying the lockers. They were totally unsympathetic even when she explained that she had a train to catch and fail to do so would have meant getting a cab all the way to London (it was a late flight). Result: they took her case, she waited 25 minutes at the carousel in Luton, she missed her train and had to pay a fortune in taxi fare.
I’ve been now complaining to Easyjet customer service for three weeks. Their robotic and equally unsympathetic relies are mind blowing. They claim my sister was late at check in, which she wasn’t. That she was late at the gate, which she wasn’t. They sent me copy of terms and conditions where it does say on “some particularly busy flights” people boarding last will be asked to place bags in the hold “free of charge” (thus being the most ridiculous add on of all, really? I’m being disrupted for free? Wow, great, bring it on!!!!)
Some flights? SOME? How about ALL?
All flights are bound to be disrupted and I’ll prove it to you.
It’s pure maths:
A airlines flying within Europe use the same airplanes. How come on BA or Alitalia, even when travling at peak times on fully booked planes, everybody finds room for their luggage but on Easyjet they don’t?
Is it by any chance that Easyjet has packed more seats than other airlines with the result of not having enough room for everyone’s luggage?
Physics isn’t an opinion, Italians say. So let’s make some simple sums:
Standard width for handluggage is 40cm. In order to store three, at least 1mt20cm should be allowed for each row of seats.
At present each rows on Easyjet is 117 in width (40cm legroom and 70cm seat, according to their own measurements) so it’s pretty obvious it CAN’T offer space for everyone’s bag.
On British Airways, the legroom is more. Adding those three cm that can make a difference.
Ta-da! Mystery solved.
Now, personally I think that the very MINIMUM any airline can offer a passenger
So shame on you Easyjet, shame on you. You are truly disgraceful.
I used to be a loyal customer and you lost me forever. It might not meaning h but you lost my sister as well and all those people who get disrupted by your lack of respect for your passengers on a regular basis.
I am in Prague right now, flying BA.
With TWO bags..
My London 