This is gettig seriously personal...
I thik it is completely un necessary to try to knock a persons opinion in such a way. So I can't type...and for your information I am not a 'business man' as you put it, nor have I ever claimed to be.
Emotions have clearly been stirred by my commets and I wish to clear up a few areas...
1. I have never called into question the issue of safety on any easyJet(or other airline) flight, I do not know enough about the safety standards imposed by the relevant authorities...and the airlines involved. To do so would be highly unfair and irresponsable on my part.
2.I have no preference for any lo-co airline, many people have commented that 'we lost his bag...its the best he can do' and I sound like MOL. Just to clear that one up, I like FR even less, they are so utterly 'hit and miss'-from a service and back-up point of view.
3.'the plot'(ie the whole poit of u2) is to have low costs and simple service propositions.Its original marketing called on people to fly to scotland for the price of a pair of jeans, U2 seem to have abandoned this oroginal niche.It takes more than low fares to attract business passengers. Lokk at airlies that have moved outside their original niche...ACA/Independence air is the most obvious and recent example.
4. Low costs and simplicity go together, in my himble opinion. Take for example the merger with go...this must have created a huge amount duplicted posts. Airline mergers dont usually work, not even southwest could do it.
5.The extra row really is a squeeze on the a319s. I suspect that airbus added that row to make the economics of the A319 more attractive(im not blaming u2 for this),as it would also give better seat-mile costs, especially as the u2 order had to be 'stolen' from boeing.I doubt that the extra crew member is warrented, if U2 removed those six seats from the 319 and trimmed the cabins in a more robust cloth or leather fabric the product would be more attractive. Even in row 1(a-c) your basically on the crews lap!
The crew were chattin about the crewing arrangments during taxy and it seemed(june 05) that crews were being moved all over the system due to shortages, they two crew also spoke of the difficulty in assigning tasks to four rather than three crew members.
To sum-up there is not a major problem with U2. As I said before I believe that they are let down by those at easyLand. People at u2(and all the other lo-cos) have a really tough job to do and are at the mercy of managers to make the correct decisions on their behalf. At the ed of the day its the crews who will suffer IF the day comes when the business models dont work, for what ever reasons.