*** You Can't Catch Me, I'm The Gingerbread Man! *** (easyJet)

Member Name: malibu_jenny

Product:	easyJet
Date:	21/10/08 (302 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No hanging about and low fares.

Disadvantages: No possibility of pre-booking your seats

Another email appeared in my inbox from Best Friend, this time containing our flight details. The title (following the pattern set by the previous god-knows-how-many similar mails) was Two Days To Go! With such a short time before we left for Morocco, I still had to pack, find my passport and tie up loose ends at work and we agreed that it would be best to arrive at Gatwick early in case there were any delays. Check in began at 12:15 and I was ready for the challenge of being somewhere on time.

I rumbled my wheeled luggage into the South Terminal around 11:15, sleepy and crumpled after a long train journey. Naturally I spotted her as soon as she cane through the door, looking compact and smart after a lie in and an easy half-hour from London. At 11:40, we had our foundation and mascara in freezer bags, the labels on the luggage and were waiting by the monstrous orange stripe of EasyJet Check-in Desks.

***Check In***

Different destinations were displayed over each desk, none of them reading Marrakech, so I sat down on the bags and began taking 'Holiday Photos' of Best Friend in the airport. After about 10 minutes, a young guy in Easy-Orange came over and asked where we were travelling to. Bizarrely, he told us that we could check in at any desk, so we did. Even though it was still 20 minutes before check-in began, we were boarding group B, which means that group A (first come, first served) was already full. You might think that these people had checked in early to secure the best seats, but with no allocated seats, EasyJet is a massive free for all and they hadn't increased their chances that much....

***Boarding***

After a Wetherspoons Lunch and a quick drag round Boots for last minute unneccessaries, we watched the TV screens for our Boarding Gate. Around half an hour before departure, the gate number flashed up and we were on our feet. Walking at an extremely brisk pace and overtaking the elderly and obese on the conveyors, we arrived at a huge bundle of people already tightly packed around a desk. Everyone was attentive and poised for action, straining to hear the lady in uniform. "Board-ing Groooooup A!" The A's lunged forward, pushing and shoving, the passport check at the desk hopelessly inefficient as they fought and climbed to get through the bottleneck of the doors.

Up next, we hatched a plan - whoever got through first would just go and try to secure seats. I had trainers on and with no queue in place, came through the bundle of Group B successfully. On the other side of the door, people were clawing past each other in the tunnel on the way to the plane, overtaking in a last ditch bid to sit with their loved ones. I got two seats together and with Best Friend close behind, we were able to drive the man in the third seat insane with three hours of our incessant and long established sniping at each other.

***Speedy Boarding***

After a few minutes, it was announced over the microphone that the people standing in the aisle complaining that their Speedy Boarding passes had been ignored, should just accept any seat, sit down where they could and shut up.

We'd debated Speedy Boarding when we booked the flights. You can pay £7.50 per person to get the dubious privilege of being allowed a couple of minutes head start in the unhinged seat fighting spectacle. Someone at work told me that they once paid for this, only to find that everyone on the flight appeared to have purchased it and thereby completely devalued it.

Had I been travelling with The Boyfriend, I might have considered Speedy Boarding. He's a nervous flyer and once kicked off on an AlItalia flight when he thought we might be sat separately. If you had a child with you, or a baby and didn't want to leave them in an aisle seat at one end of the plane while you were in a window seat at the other, you could rely on other people being generous enough to move, but you should probably use another airline.

We chose to fly with EasyJet because we're tight and as such, we didn't want to spend another £15. How badly do you really need to sit with someone? As Best Friend put it "We're not Lesbians on a romantic break, I don't care where you sit" In any case, we ended up sat so close together that she could peer at my trashy magazine over the rim of her weighty novel. Paying for Speedy Boarding would have been a total waste of money.

*** On The Plane***

On both our outward and return journeys, the plane was new and shiny on the outside and relatively clean on the inside. I thought the seats were okay width wise, and reasonably comfortable. Certainly better than you'd get on a coach for example.

Nothing on EasyJet is free, but we sampled the sandwiches (the cheese and honey roast vegetable wrap is dry and flat but the only veggie option), the tea (okay) and a lot of the vodka (fantastic and fairly good value). They also do hot soup and (on some flights, not ours) hot paninis. It should be noted that although the selection was good for the first two rows they served, everything ran out almost immediately and you'd be a lot safer taking a packed lunch than relying on this.

On the way there and back, some staff seemed cheerful and friendly while many more others bickered and argued with each other in front of passengers, snapped at you when you asked for ice or queue jumped you when you'd desperately waited forever to use the toilets. Most people, in the holiday spirit took this well and more than once we locked eyes and smiled at the antics.

Not only was the period between grabbing a seat and taking off incredibly quick, the smaller planes used on our route made getting off quick and easy, the luggage was out on the conveyors by the time we got to them and everything seemed to run smoothly. When everything goes right, EasyJet is a bit like catching the bus. (If you want to see what it's like when things go wrong, there's a long running TV series called 'Airport' which would put you off ever flying with them.)

*** The Return Journey & How We Got Good Seats ***

Despite an early arrival at Marrakech Airport, we were boarding Group B at check-in again. The long queue to check-in and security measures leaving Morocco meant that getting to the gate was a race against time with no stops.

This time, they called Speedy Boarding out first. A smug overdressed blonde with her man sailed past us, giving us a pitying look. It definitely said 'I bet you wish you had Speedy Boarding'. Next they called Group A, there seemed to be hundreds of them and as the last stragglers cleared the doorway, a queue had emerged for Group B. It was a massive queue, snaking back past duty free, and what we did next may seem really, really wrong. Alongside this queue and not in it, there were around 30 people, in groups of one or two, some to the side of the desk and others right in front of it. They were pretending in an obviously false way to read papers or look out of the window at the planes taking off. The second she even opened her mouth to shout for B, they sprang into action and we followed them.

As we shoved our way down the stairs, this queue was left standing. After a minute one of the EasyJet staff said in a puzzled manner "What group are you then?"

Downstairs, they had stopped everyone at another door. With a wider space, people had fanned out and we were now level with smug blonde and her other half. After a brief pause, they swung open the doors and pointed to a plane on the tarmac. Now it was a full on foot race and she had heels and a hostess trolley, while we were travel-hardened with light backpacks.

Running maniacally around in the baking sun, people tried to establish whether or not this was our plane and some began to queue on the steps leading to the first door. Here, we got really lucky as we followed an extremely purposeful businessman to the second door at the end of the plane (which was open) and in the event we were some of the first people on the plane with the pick of the seats.

Needless to say, in the ten minutes before take-off, the aisle was again full of people trying to speak to the crew about the duff speedy boarding cards they had in their hands. The official line was "That's for the ground staff to organise, just sit down wherever you can".

*** Cost ***

We paid between £30 and £50 per flight, each. I think this represents exceptional value for money and even though we got stung for a tenner on a cup of tea and a sandwich on top, that's okay. Booking through the website was really easy (although that's another review) and the only little niggle was that the landing time shown on our confirmation was over an hour wrong.

***Summary***

It's all a bit like catching the bus. I think if you go into it with the right attitude and you're young and fit enough to race around the airport against the clock then great. I won't claim that 'you get what you pay for' because the Speedy Boarding thing was an out and out lie, but EasyJet represents value for money with nice planes and a quick and straightforward service.

The best thing EasyJet could do is allow people to pay a bit more to pre-book their seats.

Summary: Easy only if you're young and fit!