On flying with easyJet

The list of folk who view me as “one of those people” is growing and probably now includes Bernice in easyJet’s Customer Care Department.

I used to enjoy flying with easyJet, but as those of you who keep a keen eye on Twitter will know, my most recent flight with them caused me to tweet prolifically. In fact, things didn’t get off to the best of starts when I was charged £8 just for the privilege of paying, although I had forgotten about that when I arrived at the airport.

The incoming plane was late (which is not necessarily easyJet’s fault) but rather than make up time we were delayed yet further by someone’s inability to count the passengers on board.  Still, this gave me time to appreciate the fact that easyJet have updated the interiors of their planes since I last flew with them.  Not that there was much appreciation going on, because I found it horribly cramped.  How do people over 6’ survive the longer routes they fly, I wonder?

Anyway, we did eventually take-off and, to be fair, the flight was smooth and uneventful.  But we didn’t make up much time, and – to make matters worse – had to park at the North Terminal and wait for a bus to take us back to the South Terminal.  Although the cabin crew did apologise, they had the cheek to refer to it as a “short delay.”  We arrived at the terminal over an hour late, and on a 1h35min flight I’m not sure that “short” is the word I would use.  As a friend on Facebook pointed out, “on this basis, a 66% refund would be considered small.”

The nice people at @easyJetCare did respond to my torrent of tweets and sent me a link to an online form which I used to ask for compensation for the significant delay.  The good news is that they do – apparently – offer compensation for delays over an hour.  The bad news is that because the flight only took off 47 minutes late, I don’t qualify.  So this is why I am subjecting you to my tales of a flight delay.  I mean, if you got held up in traffic would you arrive and say “I’m not late, I left on time?”  And the railway industry would rightly be crucified more than usual for telling passengers on a late train that “it was on time because it didn’t leave late.”

There.  Point made.  My nervous twitches are subsiding again.  For those of you who may actually be interested in my ramblings, I’ll let you know when I’ve had another response from easyJet…