Review: EasyJet A320 Milan To Santorini

Lucky,

Seems like you've been having pretty decent experiences on ULCCs, both domestically and abroad. I think you're turning into an old man who values time and convenience over a roundabout routing!

“Are carry-on bags are quite large, though no one said anything.”

Our, not are. Great report, glad to see EasyJet getting some love.

It's true that flying with ULCC in Europe is getting better and better. I personally bike to the airport now to take my plane and never arrive more than 1h in advance (since I ditched checked luggage completely).

I'd also say that EasyJet is better than Ryanair (IMO) on three fronts:

- Seats (slightly bigger legroom)
- Destinations (from my point of view living in BRU)
- Price (tickets are usually a bit more expensive than Ryanair's but they tend to be more stable)

Plus I'm biased but I love Airbus so... 😛

I don’t mind easyJet if I have to. Even if I’m flying a legacy carrier within Europe like KLM I get the Y tickets with extra legroom - J class is usually the same restricted legroom as Y.

Tiresome question:

What’s the difference between an LCC and a ULCC?

"I don’t get why they feel the need to line up everyone this early"

I have the same feeling. But this is how easyjet works and I do not like it so I try to avoid easyjet for that reason.

"the airport doesn’t have jet bridges"
And even in some airports if they have airbridges, easyjet does not want to pay for it.
In Toulouse for instance, you (are parked first for 15 minutes of course) walk on the jet bridge and then have to take the stairs down to the tarmac and go-up again to board. Grrr...

"EasyJet apparently has 29″ of pitch in the regular economy seats"
Well BA, AF, too so here nothing less than the legacy indeed.

"an empty seat next to you"
Euro-business, isn't it? 😉 ... without the curtain... but who cares for that? 😉

"The tray table folded out from the seat in front, and was on the small side."
When you think that Air France was the first airline to introduce those seats with 180 of them in a A320, the difference with the LCC is tiny then.

Thanks for the review.

Why wouldn’t there be individual air nozzles in economy Lucky? If they didn’t have those I wouldn’t even know what to think of airlines anymore...

The legroom on easyJet isn't that bad because the seats are very thin (and the 29" pitch includes the seat itself). It's actually fairly acceptable, and you can even easily work your laptop during the flight as the seats don't recline. These seats are actually quite smart--and in the event they also save quite a bit of fuel costs because of the reduced weight.

Off topic:
ttps://money.cnn.com/2018/07/24/investing/taiwan-china-airlines-websites/index.html

American companies have finally found their spine. Let's support them. China is a bully. The more you give, the more they ask. Xi is the Hitler of our time. Jingoistic asshole. Eff China.

On a side note, why does this A320 have an Austrian registration? Isn't Easyjet supposed to be based in the UK?

@Bob: It depends on the airport. Here in PRG, you'll often see an Easyjet plane connected to a jet bridge. I also boarded a Ryanair flight through a bridge in OSL recently, and that's an airline that specifically uses the 737's emergency air stairs for boarding to maximize savings. I guess it comes down to the airport's capacity and hence the scarcity of premium gate space.

@ Juraj

That's correct.
It is not clear why easyjet does it at some airports and not at others.
I guess this is cost related.

@Brian It's an ex-Niki Plane. I flew the same route and the panel display at the from left door that the cabin crew use still displayed "Niki".

@Lucky I departed the same gate at MXP and many passengers ( after waiting in that holding area for over 20 mins) tore down those flexi barriers that were used to form the line and pushed ahead of the people in the Speedy Boarding line once the door opened. Utter chaos- yelling and pushing galore!

@Lucky Will you tell us about your departure experience from Santorini airport. Mine in June was chaos! Not helped by a 5 hour delay on that JTR-MXP route.

@Brian,
EasyJet used to have 2 Air Operator Certificates, one Swiss and one British. But with Brexit just around the corner they needed an AOC of an EU member other than the UK otherwise they would lose access to intra EU routes. EasyJet Chose Austria to apply for a third AOC and so Easyjet Europe was born. All aircraft with OE-XXX belong to Easyjet Europe with more to be transferred over from EZY UK

@Lucky, Santorini in the summer? Hope it worked out better than your Lake Como trio last year. 😉

Well the early morning departure was clearly better than i had during their late afternoon bank of departures at MXP. They say one should arrive at the airport atleast 2hrs early......i got that 1.5hrs early and almost missed my flight. The qeues at check-in/security were not moving! Hadn't seen anything like that before.
Apart from that, i had a great experience with them and the windows were clean too.

And indeed Easyjet uses the airbridge at MUC too.

"EasyJet apparently has 29″ of pitch in the regular economy seats, though I have to say that the legroom didn’t actually look that bad. Is that just because I didn’t have to sit in one of those seats, or…?"

I did sit in one of those seats, and it really wasn't that bad. Didn't seem any worse than BA or LH in deep coach, as Matthew puts it. As someone else said, U2 uses super thin seats, which while tough on the posterior, help with the legroom.

"“I don’t get why they feel the need to line up everyone this early”

Because if you're the last to board, you have more chances that your carryon will be checked in.

@random travel

EasyJet has less legroom than Ryanair by one inch. Ryanair has 30, EasyJet has 29.

I’m amazed they let you on with your rollaboard and that enormous weekender!

Thanks for the great and detailed review, Ben! I think it is good to have an occasional LCC / economy review from you, because for some routes and purposes it just makes most sense to use those. A bit of LCC flying in Asia, e.g. between Japan and Korea, would also be interesting.

"Tiresome question:

What’s the difference between an LCC and a ULCC?"

In a European sense I'd say that easyJet is an LCC (though so is BA if you're flying from LGW, albeit with normal oneworld benefits for those who have status), WizzAir is ULCC and Ryanair is somewhere in between (though their new hand baggage policy, where you can only take a bag on board if you've paid for priority boarding, makes them closer to ULCC again). I'd choose easyJet any day over Ryanair.

Ben - why didn't you just use the easyJet app to download your boarding passes? I get you probably didn't book that far ahead, but you can do that 30 days before your flight.

Just a note regarding checkin. On Easyjet, Ryanair, etc. you have to check upfront and print your ticket (or use your phone). Technically you can check on the airport, but you would have to pay a hefty fee for that service. People wait in checkin lines to drop off their bags.

Out of many low cost carriers i prefer Easyjet. Yes, it is more expensive than Ryanair, but it does connect to main/large airports, which is handy for connections. Ryanair for example flies to obscure, out of way, but cheaper airports (for most people) - Frankfurt Hahn, Paris Beauvais, Brussel Charleroi, Venice Treviso, Milan Bergamo just to name some. Not even to mention that transfer from those airports to the main city costs much more.

I Love EasyJet book way out their Cheap very well run they got rid of the Useless people.

CHEERs

@Matty,

Easyjet doesn't charge you for airport check-in. (And I really like their boarding pass, at least it comes in colors with designs which is something you can't even find on many legacy airlines in Europe...) But Ryanair and Wizz do charge you for this (One differentiation between LCC and ULCC)

at least the buy on board is reasonable and better that the US swill.

@Lucky,

1. Thank you for an interesting and informative article.

2. As has already been stated above by someone else, "Are carry-on bags" should be "Our carry-on bags". It matters. I don't understand why you haven't corrected it.

3. "We lucked out" is an unusual phrase, which is open to misinterpretation. At first, I thought you meant you had had bad luck, which was the opposite of what happened. "We were in luck" is more comprehensible.

@ABQ - it's common outside North America to see widebodies without individual air nozzles, and since many carriers outside NA also tend to keep their cabins quite a bit warmer than is usual in the US or Canada, these planes are the bane of Lucky's existence. (And having the metabolism of a polar bear, I agree with him.)

I've never heard of narrowbodies without the nozzles, though, but my experience outside the US is limited. Possible I've just never seen one, or that Lucky is just kidding with this reference.

I've flown EasyJet a few times and always been quite happy with them.

The only problem with easyjet and kids: They don't allow rear facing car seats, even if they are certified for use in aircraft. Most other carriers in Europe do. I have no idea why, and when you look at the available certified seats that simply makes no sense. In practice it depends on the captain: I usually insist on using the seat for our baby son, which prompts the cabin crew to refer to the captain. Sometimes he let us use it, most times we had to put our son on our lap for take-off and landing, but could use the seat for the remainder of the time. Very annoying, and unsafe!

Loved this report Ben. Although I always wait to read the premium trips you take, it’s interesting that even when you have paid big bucks to fly 1st, you have had a lot worse soft product and service, no air vents and although free - worse food ....... makes you wonder

I loved EasyJet when I was in the EU. Cheap, good network, lots of weekly flight sales, and (mostly) reliable. Honestly, It was a much better experience than the claustrophobic A319/320 BA econ 'experience.'

We took this flight on Oct’17 using Emirates miles, mesmerising landing at JTR.