EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness

As I mentioned in my last post I wasn’t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights

EasyJey don’t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane

Their boarding procedure works in groups in this order

Group SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding/Speedy Boarding Plus

Group SA: Passengers requiring special assistance and families (maximum 2 adults) where at least one child is aged 5 years or under.

Group A: (reserved for passengers who have checked in online, and the first 30 people who check in at the airport)

Group B: (Everyone else)

On paper this looks like a good idea

People who pay more get on first and get to pick the “best seats”

People with children or wheelchairs are kept separate

Online check-in gets a priority which I see as a nice incentive (and it’s less people the check-in staff to deal with) but in practise is of little use on main holiday as you can only use it if you only have hand luggage

Everyone else just has to queue and pick from what is left

My experience went like this

When we knew which gate to go to we made our way over. Luckily we were waiting quite close to the gate so started the short walk. We then noticed a large family rushing to get to the front of the queue

Once we made it to the gate we were quite near to the front. I figured about 25 groups in front of us and I looked behind to see the queue starting to stretch through the airport

The flight was slightly delayed so people were getting hot and bothered. Especially when staff appeared near the gate but the gate remained closed (presumably they were waiting for the all clear from the plane)

Finally one of the members of staff came forward and asked for the Speedy Boarding group

She wasn’t letting people on but checking passports against boarding passes to save time when the gate actually opened which seemed like a nice gesture but the problem was the queue

The speedy boarding passengers started to come forward but the people who already had a place in the queue didn’t want to move. There was also only one lady checking tickets so everyone surged toward her thinking they were boarding so wanted to be seen first

She gave up and escaped and there was then some mumbled announcement which only came once and I never heard it properly

Since Bryony I had a 3 year old and 5 month old, hand luggage and a pushchair we started to move forward but stepped out of the surge as I was worried about losing Alice. We’d taken Evie out of the pushchair as she’d started to get upset during the wait.

The queue now lost all shape and when they finally started to board the Speedy Boarding group our place near the front had disappeared. Again the other boarding groups didn’t want to move so there was a lot of pushing and shoving as people tried to get on and I actually saw one group who weren’t in the Speedy Boarding group (the large family I mentioned earlier) trying to get through at the same time so they’d be at the front of the queue for the second boarding group!

Eventually I interrupted one of people trying to push past my wife (she was holding a baby! and they still pushed!) and he looked me straight in the eye with a look of contempt and said

“Are you a Speedy Boarder??”

It would have been really easy to be rude at this point and get into an argument but I replied with a simple

“Yes, yes we are”

Which seemed to take him by surprise and he stopped and let Bryony though

We managed to squeeze through only to see people rushing down the boarding ramp. While Speedy Boarders get on ahead of everyone else it’s still very much first come first serve on the plane. We were trying to fold up the pushchair in the middle of all this and no-one really cared about the fact we had two small children with us

While this happened Alice did actually get separated from us. I managed to grab her before she went onto the plane on her own. The door down the steps and onto the tarmac was slightly ajar but thankfully I managed to keep her away from that

Under other circumstances there was potential for the kids safety to be under threat. When Alice got pulled away from us she could very easily have been trampled and during the all the pushing and shoved in the queue Evie could have been hurt by arms, elbows or hand luggage on people’s shoulders or worse if Bryony had been pushed over.

I also have no idea what Bryony would have done if she’d stayed on her own as originally planned. She wouldn’t have heard the mumbled announcement and wouldn’t have heard the lady at the front trying to check tickets (though in my opinion airports, train stations and bus stations make very poor arrangements for the deaf anyway)

So what could have made it better?

Some ideas…

1) Organisation – Before announcing the gate put up some “posts & ropes” to clearly indicate where each boarding group should queue. The main problem I think started as there was one long queue of mixed boarding groups – However this wouldn’t stop people rushing down the boarding ramp

2) Clearer information – the lady who tried to save time by checking tickets either;

Shouldn’t have done it,

Made everyone aware of what was happening

and / or asked everyone to stay where they were in the queue and she could have walked along checking them as she passed

The token mumbled tannoy announcement was a waste of time too. It ideally would have come before she called people forward

3) Allocated seats – nobody rushes for a seat that is already theirs

4) Limited Speedy Boarding numbers – there seemed to be quite a few people in the first boarding group which is possibly why they were rushing down the boarding ramp. What if everyone on the plane paid for Speedy Boarding? Where is the benefit then?

I think allocated seats would have been the answer myself but EasyJet seem to see it as a benefit to choose your own seat

I don’t quite agree with this as there are only one to two “good seats” on a plane and the rest are all the same after that. The odds of getting the exact seat you want are quite slim. As we had Evie and Alice we ideally would have liked something with a little more legroom (especially as Bryony is breast feeding) but as soon as the pushing and shoving started I realised we had now chance of this. As we got on the place we thought about asking the people in the front seats if they’d let us sit there but I thought if they’d fought and pushed to be in a position to get those seats they wouldn’t give it up for a baby!

My theory was proved correct when almost everyone was sat down. The cabin crew announced that there was a mother with two children. They must have been at the back and were unable to find seats for them to sit together. The crew announced safety regulations meant they couldn’t sit apart and if there were any adults that could sit apart or if a couple were taking up two seats in a three seat row could they give up their seats. We couldn’t take off until this was sorted but they had to ask three times!

It would also mean they wouldn’t be able to charge for Speedy Boarding

A did a couple of searches and found similar experiences to my own – which sound even worse when there is a bus involved. Everyone bussed out at the same time but Speedy Boarders allowed out first. Madness (two from the Times website here and here – they are both worth a read)

When i was reading the in-flight magazine I spotted an email address that welcomes customer feedback so I’ll be sending a link to this post

There is a also a twitter account (@easyJetCare) so I’d be interested to hear any comments they have

I’ll definitely be thinking twice about using EasyJet in the future