easyJet, please end this tyranny!
easyJet, you have what is basically a good quality, affordable product, thank you. And I'm grateful that you and others are giving us route choices that we would never have thought would happen.
But I can see absolutely no sign that you are trying to make the ground journey in any way tolerable. Last night in Berlin, for example, the 2135 SFX-LPL. I notice as I pass Arrivals that the inbound from Liverpool is due at 2107. I reach the departure lounge at 2040 to read that my flight is apparently "boarding" and the gate will "close" at 2105.
Well, I always take this stuff with a pinch of salt but I am not going to risk getting the gate after 2105 in case someone decides that this is an excellent way of taking more money off me. So I go to the gate immediately and amazingly the queues are tiny. All the other suckers are way ahead of me!
The departure lounge is like a prison and stuffed with a full load of passengers. No proper food nor drink nor water, no toilets and seating for well less than half. It's 2050, and there is still nearly 20 minutes till our plane is going to land. A lot of people seem to think that the plane outside is ours and some are queueing for it (despite the allocated seating, so they must be worried about bag space) but it's on the next stand, not ours.
I'm not of an age where I can stand up for ever, so I sink to the hard floor and open my final German beer, eyed enviously by the friendly student slumped next to me. I read quietly, and eventually our plane arrives. The passengers have not even started to get off but half of us get up and join the queue. At least I now have a chair.
After what seems an age, the doors of our prison open and everyone charges out, to join... yes, another queue. Soon just two of us are left in the departure lounge, the other being a pleasant and very pregnant lady.
I expect us to be ejected but we sit there until the backs of the queues reach the bottoms of the steps, and then wander out. On board, we queue while crew and passengers achieve miracles with cabin baggage. I have to say, the cabin crew are excellent considering they were on a lunchtime GVA beforehand.
At Liverpool, as soon as the engines shut down, everyone gets up and yes, you've guessed it, they queue to get off. There is nobody to meet the aircraft so they queue for 15 minutes. Unbelievably, nobody complains. The girl behind me, on her phone, tells her mother but seems to think this is just normal.
The tolerance of all these people is remarkable. Do they not notice all this unnecessary queueing? Do they not query that they are being suckered, just because easyJet is petrified of the passengers not being ready? Do they not object to the abysmal discomfort of the departure lounges? Have they been dumbed down to expect such inconsiderate treatment? Because that is what it is - there is nothing here that a bit of thoughtfulness couldn't solve.
How about business passengers? In the old days, even in economy, ground handling was nothing like this. To be a frequent flyer in Europe now must be a fate worse than death.
It's all in the hands of easyJet. Come on, somebody high up in the airline who has the power to make changes, take a flight on your own airline and count up how long you stand queueing unnecessarily. At the moment, it feels like you are videoing the best queueing moments and you play them back to the Board over a few Friday night beers and have a lot of laughs. What suckers all you passengers are, you exclaim!
And fellow passengers, play them at their own game. Join the tiny handful of people that only join a queue when it has almost disappeared. If we all do that, then easyJet will have to do things differently. And not before time.
Last edited by pilothouse; 25th Oct 2013 at 11:15.