Minkey: Flying Solo (easyJet)

Member Name: Fishbulb

Product:	easyJet
Date:	25/07/03 (515 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Know what you're getting, Value for Money, Available to all

Disadvantages: Bloody Orange everywhere, Get what you pay for, I didn't get to fly the plane :(

As we waved our goodbyes to the folks dressed like giant tangerines I ponder for a moment why cabin crew are dressed up to look like American tourists in full Mardi-Gra costume. I assume that there is a secret competition between the airlines to make the most vomit-inducing uniform. There must be some kind of sadomasochistic industry working here. I picture in my mind a boardroom full airline directors. They are wearing more leather than the combined total attendance at a Texan Rodeo. The chair of the meeting is in a gimp-suit with a large red ball strapped into his timeworn mouth. To them, it is a game. There is a police style line up of young talentless designers against one wall. They’re sweating like plastic knickers in a sauna. Bids are flying around the room, the liquor is plentiful and the general atmosphere is one of glee. They are offering money for the least gifted of the bunch to design the uniforms for their competitors. I grin at the orange people and wonder if they’ve ever been mistaken for Oompaloompas. I decide that now is not a good time to ask. Speaking of time, I try and work out what time it is. This proves to be a more difficult task than I’d once imagined as it’s at this point that I noticed I have omitted to don my watch. Instead as I wander through the umpteenth empty corridor, I busy myself with my new surroundings and try and remember some of my lingual skills. The time is an hour ahead so am I more or less tired than when I took off. I think that it’s tomorrow already so when I get up is the day after or still tomorrow? I’m confused and hungry. So this is Spain huh?


That’s how my holiday started, but let me regress a little and tell you all about the wonders of the flights I booked.


As a surprise for Mr Fishbulb’s 30th birthday I decided that as he has everything I should probably take him on holiday to try and forget that he’s getting old. It just
so happened that Mr & Mrs Fishbulb-in-law (Senior) had conveniently moved out to Spain in March which consequently paved the way for a rather cheap holiday for us.


For anyone who’s not familiar with the ‘Easy’ companies, let me tell you a little bit about the background. Stelios HugeWalletus made a bit of a decision a few years ago that things were too expensive and set about making things cheaper for the great unwashed. This means literally no-frills services. Also for some reason everything under the ‘Easy’ umbrella is a lurid orange colour. Milton Keynes has quite recently seen the opening of the first ‘EasyCinema’ which is a delightful shade of tangerine – most fitting next to the super-modern shopping centre!


The thing with catering for the great unwashed is they want things cheap. This is something ‘Easy’ does well and to a degree you certainly get what you pay for.


No frills equals, no tickets, no offices, no meals on the plane, no freebies, no first-class/business class/anything other than cattle-class and no reserved seats. Anyone who’s

ever been on a school trip or an arranged day out on a coach will know the ordeal it is trying to get people organized – give them a choice of seat too and there’s chaos. All EasyJet bookings have to be made online, the website is gaudy and spending too long on it could possibly give you snow-blindness, thankfully it’s idiot-proof, user friendly and booking a flight takes a matter of moments.


There’s information, statistics and suchlike on the website if you’re interested as well as a most excellent route information page and numerous pages of information on baggage allowances etcetera. Booking your flights is done through a series of drop-down boxes on the front-page. When you have selected your chosen dates you are offered a number of flights on and ei
ther side of your chosen travel date. The best prices can be found if you are a little flexible with your timings. As well as offering you a number of flights if flights are available from a different airport you are at this point informed of this fact too. Then it’s just a matter of checking the boxes next to the flights you want and proceeding to the next page.


The next page is a clear breakdown of your flights/taxes. Then onto the secure booking page. Booking by debit card is the way to go here if you can as there’s no charge, however expect a minimal charge for paying with a credit card. (Another moneyspinner?)


You’ll get a confirmation email immediately with a booking reference on it (no tickets remember) It’s probably best to print this off and put it with your passport. I printed my confirmation and promptly lost it. Through a mountain of spam in my inbox I thought I may have deleted the email by mistake and emailed EasyJet about a week before my holiday requesting the information. I’ve been back a week now and I’m still awaiting a reply.


Check-in was almost painless in spite of the guy behind the desk getting annoyed with Mr Fish as we’d both joined a queue each and joined each other at the front. He was quite miserable and didn’t even bat an eyelid at the cuddly monkey I was carrying (who incidentally handed over his passport too and was huffed at)


Rather bizarrely our flight wasn’t called until the last minute and we nearly missed it as we were playing Tekken (I won – even with a broken keypad hehehe) finding a seat was a bloody nightmare, but we managed to get three seats between us (Minkey the monkey sat in the middle) and there was surprisingly plenty of leg-room and I have rather long legs.


The plane was clean and the staff were amazingly friendly. My Minkey was quite popular among the cabin-crew and actually got to
go into the cockpit (hehehe…..I said cock) and he also got to fly the plane (It was a woman captain and she obviously has a soft spot for monkeys) The toilet, however was filthy. Truly disgusting, even at the beginning of the flight.


It has been a long time since I last flew and I did pay particular attention to the cabin crew when they were showing us what to do in an emergency etc. However, although the general showmanship was calming and informative, the voice of the stewardess had lulled me into a sense of security (three cheers for that, calming is WAY up there on the list of things all cabin crew should be) however, since I last flew there has been an addition to the schpeel in that half way through the speech while the girlie was pointing at a particular part of the card the voice explaining what was going on told us:

“shown here, on the card, is the position you should adopt should you hear BRACE BRACE!!!!!”

the words echoed around my brain for the duration of the flight and made me feel quite panicky!


There’s a free magazine on offer either for the duration of the flight or if you want, you can take it with you. I picked up one of these and there was some excellent information on all the cities that EasyJet fly into including local customs, interesting places to visit and places to be entertained/watered.


If you do decide to choose EasyJet as your choice of airline I’d wholeheartedly recommend that you take onboard with you some bottled water and whatever refreshments you need. I ended up paying £1 for a bottle of lukewarm water, smaller than an average pop can and £1 for one of those mini Pringle tube thingys. Not good value.


On the whole I can’t complain. Our flights were on time. Planes were clean. Staff were well turned out (in spite of looking like they’re dressed up for All Hallows Eve) But, as with most things, there’s a
degree of luck involved. Our flight out was great, wonderful, helpful, chatty staff and a good flight all round. Our flight back, the staff were in unironed uniforms, they were rude, surly and generally made us feel uncomfortable about requesting anything. They were quite busy having a chat about what they’d been up to and I got bashed no less than 4 times by them without a single word of apology.


We paid a grand total of £180.00 (including taxes) for a return flight from London Luton Airport to Malaga Airport plus £4.00 for booking on a credit card. We booked a few months prior to the flight which is always a key factor. Book as early as possible for flights and as late as possible for package deals – they my friends, are key elements in getting a good deal on your holiday. We went for 15 days and chose exactly when we left and when we came back.


With EasyJet, they only let you book up to about 6 months in advance, but that’s plenty of time to get yourself a good deal. Don’t forget that you can rent an EasyCar through the website too or even arrange your car-parking at the airport prior to your arrival (as it’s cheaper) What I will say about parking though is seriously consider if there’s another way to get to the airport, if you’re spending £180 on a holiday like we did, parking at the reduced rate was still nearly half that. Which was double what it would have cost to get a taxi!

I saw today flights to Malaga for the beginning of December for around £13 each (one way) For that sort of price I think most of us would put up with slightly less than perfect service. I’d happily fly EasyJet again as they only fly short-haul flights, but even if they did flights to the USA for the same prices I’d probably not fly with them. EasyJet have found an ideal niche in the market. Cheap short-haul flights are a big YES for the consumer. I hope that this isn’t scuppered
by the possible passing of a new consumer-law which would entitle folks to claim against airlines for delays/cancelled flights. The minimum claim for this is looking to be around £175.00 which would undoubtedly jack up the prices if it comes to pass. So take an EasyFlight while you can.


Happy Holidays!

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