The BBC, on February 9th reports:
"The carrier, which keeps its ticket prices down by cutting overheads deemed unnecessary, operates a non-reserved seating policy.
But after checking in, passengers on flights out of Luton have been able to avoid possible queues and a scramble for seats by paying £10 for an early-boarding privilege.
"Business people might like to have a particular seat so they would be able to leave the plane quickly on arrival," a spokeswoman explained."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4249751.stm
I don't know about you guys, but I for one think that this is an absolutley ridiculous and unworkable idea.
Having experience of how low cost airlines operate I can see that this is set up to fail.
Imagine:
. . . the inbound flight arrives on stand on time (something that happens less often than not), 149 passengers get off, the crew clean and security check the cabin, then the crew get off, then the new crew get on. Meanwhile at the boarding gate, the outbound passengers are already crowding around the gate once the aircraft pulls onto stand - even after announcements by the gate staff asking passengers to take their seats and await the priority boarding announcements.
Then, the gate staff pre-board those that have paid the extra £10, who are presumably business travellers (because this is who easyJet say they want this product to appeal to) but first they have to push past all of the other passengers, including those with children and push chairs so that they can preboard. I don't think so!
Then of course you have the issue of outstations actually delivering the product - once it is fully roled out (easyJet, like any airline wants to offer a consistent product for it's travellers at all airports). Experience shows that many handling staff abroad can not even ask the mandatory security questions for UK airlines, let alone board by the current priority boarding system and NOW something else to police!
Why not get the current procedures to work properly before muddying the waters with something else?