Hello!
I really enjoy writing my airline reviews, and I really hope that you guys do, too! I really hope you get something out of them. I do put a lot of effort into them, because I'm trying to keep them as informative as possible, but please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see included into them, or an airline you'd like to see me review, and I'll see what I can do! (Lol, rhyme.)
A few weeks ago now, I took a flight down to London Luton Airport with easyJet, and this is what I've noted down to talk about with you.
Flight oneThe flight was due to depart at 6pm on Friday 7th April, and I got to the departure hall with just enough time to grab a snack and for the gate to be announced, at 5.15pm. (I also may or may not have bought some gin and a lipstick from duty free. Ahem.)
Once I was ready, and had stopped fighting with the self scan machine at WH Smith (please just once, scan my mobile boarding pass!), I made my way to the departure gate and then waited in a very long queue.
At this point, everything is perfectly normal, and it wasn't too unexpected (ngl, I normally get to my gate and I just need to sit down and wait, so the sudden queue was a surprise.) It was strange though, because there was 4 different gates in this terminal that I'd never been to before, so didn't know which I was joining, and nearly joined a queue going elsewhere. (Maybe I'd have ended up in Spain! That would have been great! Maybe not without my suitcase, though... I digress.)
I found my queue, and then the tannoy announcements began. The first of which was telling us our flight was delayed. I'd already bleeped through at security, (I know it's random, but it only seems to happen when I have my earrings in) and had to stand in the body scan, where the security thought the woman before me was my mum! I'm 23! And I bought sparkling water instead of still out of WH Smith, (it was the worst thing) so this just added to my already bad mood. The second tannoy was asking for anyone to put their hand luggage into the hold for free, just because it was expected that there would be excess.
At roughly, 6pm, the time for departure, and also 40 minutes later. The boarding finally began. I don't think it was that well orchestrated, because there was no real speedy boarding; in fact, I overheard somebody behind me talk about how 'speedy boarding doesn't exist'. However, we were given notice of the delay and the boarding was speedy once it actually began.
On the flight, the safety speech was quick, using the voice over - which made me happy when they mentioned 'brace brace' simply because it gave me flashbacks to college, where we were sitting in our senior air cabin crew class, in the mock airplane cabin, being taught about safety precedures with Kenny getting me to shout 'brace, brace!'. Good times.
I got distracted, anyway, the snack service was rapid, and I was sitting towards the front of the aircraft, overhearing all the terrible jokes the passengers were telling the cabin crew members (I have no idea how they managed to keep such a straight face, I imagine it's a lot like hearing 'if it doesn't scan, it must be free!' so kudos to you!). The crew on this flight were also collecting for charity, and I had change in my purse, but before I had the time to get the change out, they had walked past me.
I was sitting in the middle seat of my row, and it was spotless, as you would expect. The seatback in front of me contained what was expected; 2 magazines, the safety card and the sick bag. What I didn't expect was to see adverts on the seats; europcar, hot drinks and an introduction to their new aircraft "Airbus A320 Neo" coming in June 2017 - which is interesting because I think that's the aircraft Sophie Dekkers talked about at the STA Conference last year. I didn't take pictures of the adverts to show you because I was worried it might look a bit weird to the two people on either side of me.
The flight itself was fine, and we managed to make up for lost time. I chatted to the person next to me about my tattoo (which was honestly one of the most exciting things to have ever happened to me, literally ever, oh my god. He was like 'I like your tattoo, I've just noticed it! Is it a Bill and Ted reference?" ASDFGHJKL)
Nothing too out of the ordinary, but there wasn't a lot I found of value to really note down. It was a bog standard flight, as was expected. What you have to remember when you fly low cost, is that you're getting what you pay for. The only difference is, is that easyJet want to be a slightly better value low cost carrier, so it can be easy to forget this when you look at their branding.
Flight two
I left Lucy's at 5.15pm one week later (Friday 14th April), and she dropped me off at the short time drop off at 17.40pm, where we said our goodbyes. When I arrived at the check in desk, it took me a while to get seen (despite being next in the queue) due to a very disorganised group in front of me. To clarify - this is not the fault of the check in staff, it was just an inconvinience to me.
Eventually, I was to security (which, itself was really quick), made my way through duty free (without buying anything) and it seemed that very soon after, my gate was announced, however I didn't find the gate to be that well advertised, as I stood in the queue relatively unsure if I was in the right one. Regardless, the queue moved quickly, priority boarding happened, then regular boarding began and we were all stood on the staircase, and remained there. For around 20 minutes.
As it turned out, our plane hadn't yet arrived, which I began to track using the easyJet app.
We did make it onto the plane (obviously, or this review would be very different). This aircraft was also clean, the cabin crew were friendly as well as approachable, and the seatbacks contained the same as before, however, I would say that the captain didn't provide a whole lot of information to us. In fact, we were due to depart at 7pm, and once it reached that time, we were still sitting on the ground. I overheard a passenger asking a cabin crew member about what was going on, and showed her the app, which stated that we should be in the air. She didn't know, and went to see the captain. Once she came back, just before 7.10pm, to relay the information onto the passenger, the captain came onto the tannoy to tell us that the reason for our delay was due to a passenger fainting in the departure lounge (not a surprise to me, as I had also felt faint on the staircase) and therefore we were waiting for their luggage to be taken off the plane, as they were now unfit to fly, however, that we would be in the air in 15 minutes. While it is great that we were given this information, eventually, we should have been told sooner, and it shouldn't have been catalysed by a passenger inquiring about the delay. We took off at 7.35pm - therefore, a 35 minute delay.
For this flight, I was sitting in the middle of the aircraft, in the aisle seat, and as such I was able to watch, and listen, to the Cabin Crew talk to the passengers sitting on the emergency exits located next to the wings. They described the precedures they would need to follow in the event of an emergency - because these seats don't have a designated cabin crew member sitting beside it if one was to occur, and then checked with the passengers that they were still happy to remain sitting there. This is going to sound a bit weird, but I kind of want to sit in one of these seats... Maybe not for a long haul flight, but for short haul, and only because we were told about these procedures when I was at college so it would be cool to be able to look over them again and know what I was doing, just in case.
The fasten seatbelt signs were on for longer than normal, which I assumed was due to possible turbulance. Throughout this, cabin crew were very attentive, and informed a passenger trying to vacate their seat during this that the signs were still on and that they must remain seated. At 7.45pm the signs came off, and trolley service began 5 minutes later.
It didn't take too long to get back to Glasgow, and once we'd landed, I navigated to the luggage carousels, and was out of the airport in no time - I was even lucky enough to get straight onto the bus back to my flat!
Overall my easyJet experience was very average, which is to be expected, however, I feel as though my expectations were slightly higher due to hearing so many great accounts and therefore my review may not be fair, and come from a bias perspective. So while I feel that my experience has been 7/10 overall, I also feel that I should travel with easyJet again in order to compare experiences and give a much fairer account to all of you, and to easyJet.
I also aim to review the easyJet app, so this can be something that comes sometime in the near future. Keep an eye out for that!
At this point I also want to talk about my plans now for this blog - I aim to post twice a week, once on Tuesday, in a series I'm calling Travel Tuesday, and the other on Saturday, which can be about any topic. I'm doing this to create a focus on this as a travel blog, and Travel Tuesday has a nice ring to it - and was the most popular response in my twitter poll "Travel Tuesday or Travel Thursday'. My second posting day will be subject to change, depending on when is easiest to me to post.
Until next time, be excellent to each other.
Flight two
I left Lucy's at 5.15pm one week later (Friday 14th April), and she dropped me off at the short time drop off at 17.40pm, where we said our goodbyes. When I arrived at the check in desk, it took me a while to get seen (despite being next in the queue) due to a very disorganised group in front of me. To clarify - this is not the fault of the check in staff, it was just an inconvinience to me.
Eventually, I was to security (which, itself was really quick), made my way through duty free (without buying anything) and it seemed that very soon after, my gate was announced, however I didn't find the gate to be that well advertised, as I stood in the queue relatively unsure if I was in the right one. Regardless, the queue moved quickly, priority boarding happened, then regular boarding began and we were all stood on the staircase, and remained there. For around 20 minutes.
As it turned out, our plane hadn't yet arrived, which I began to track using the easyJet app.
We did make it onto the plane (obviously, or this review would be very different). This aircraft was also clean, the cabin crew were friendly as well as approachable, and the seatbacks contained the same as before, however, I would say that the captain didn't provide a whole lot of information to us. In fact, we were due to depart at 7pm, and once it reached that time, we were still sitting on the ground. I overheard a passenger asking a cabin crew member about what was going on, and showed her the app, which stated that we should be in the air. She didn't know, and went to see the captain. Once she came back, just before 7.10pm, to relay the information onto the passenger, the captain came onto the tannoy to tell us that the reason for our delay was due to a passenger fainting in the departure lounge (not a surprise to me, as I had also felt faint on the staircase) and therefore we were waiting for their luggage to be taken off the plane, as they were now unfit to fly, however, that we would be in the air in 15 minutes. While it is great that we were given this information, eventually, we should have been told sooner, and it shouldn't have been catalysed by a passenger inquiring about the delay. We took off at 7.35pm - therefore, a 35 minute delay.
For this flight, I was sitting in the middle of the aircraft, in the aisle seat, and as such I was able to watch, and listen, to the Cabin Crew talk to the passengers sitting on the emergency exits located next to the wings. They described the precedures they would need to follow in the event of an emergency - because these seats don't have a designated cabin crew member sitting beside it if one was to occur, and then checked with the passengers that they were still happy to remain sitting there. This is going to sound a bit weird, but I kind of want to sit in one of these seats... Maybe not for a long haul flight, but for short haul, and only because we were told about these procedures when I was at college so it would be cool to be able to look over them again and know what I was doing, just in case.
The fasten seatbelt signs were on for longer than normal, which I assumed was due to possible turbulance. Throughout this, cabin crew were very attentive, and informed a passenger trying to vacate their seat during this that the signs were still on and that they must remain seated. At 7.45pm the signs came off, and trolley service began 5 minutes later.
It didn't take too long to get back to Glasgow, and once we'd landed, I navigated to the luggage carousels, and was out of the airport in no time - I was even lucky enough to get straight onto the bus back to my flat!
Overall my easyJet experience was very average, which is to be expected, however, I feel as though my expectations were slightly higher due to hearing so many great accounts and therefore my review may not be fair, and come from a bias perspective. So while I feel that my experience has been 7/10 overall, I also feel that I should travel with easyJet again in order to compare experiences and give a much fairer account to all of you, and to easyJet.
I also aim to review the easyJet app, so this can be something that comes sometime in the near future. Keep an eye out for that!
At this point I also want to talk about my plans now for this blog - I aim to post twice a week, once on Tuesday, in a series I'm calling Travel Tuesday, and the other on Saturday, which can be about any topic. I'm doing this to create a focus on this as a travel blog, and Travel Tuesday has a nice ring to it - and was the most popular response in my twitter poll "Travel Tuesday or Travel Thursday'. My second posting day will be subject to change, depending on when is easiest to me to post.
Until next time, be excellent to each other.
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