Amex.
As a senior cabin crew member for easyJet, I take offence at your comment on our our PAs. We are encourage to ad-lib some PA and I have to admit that I cringe on a regular basis with some people when they get hold of the mic...
HOWEVER..as with any airline we ARE there primarily for your safety. Would it really bother you what I was wearing when I drag your ass out of a burning aircraft or when I give you CPR when your heart packs in??
I am trained in exactly the same way as all other British airlines - it's what you know that counts.

;)

When easy took over GO a lot of passengers complained about the loss of allocated seating.
easy's response was that tests had shown that unallocated seating speeded up the boarding process. Using the STN routes as a guide I saw no such effect.
From my observations the single best way to speed the boarding process is too have a consistent procedure which the passengers are familiar with. There is also a certain type of selfish person who can cause mayhem on boarding by just generally fussing and getting in the way, insisting in sitting in an aisle seat with the inner seats empty so other passengers have to get them to move. They are more prevalent on holiday flights.

For myself, travelling on business and usually alone, I almost always get a perfectly acceptable seat, even though I am rarely below 90 in the boarding sequence.

What does piss me off is travelling with the family when it is impossible to sit with my children and they can find this intimidating on a busy flight. Arriving at the airport really early is just a waste of time as bus boarding is all too common and you lose all benefit of your low priority number. easyJet in their defence have recently improved their boarding process to accomodate groups with smaller children.

I'd go with one of the earlier posts, its not going to work.

I'm not clear how preallocated seating works better for those with children as often when arriving at the airport there are only spare seats and middles left. Out of say London Heathrow, by the time check-in opens often many of the seats have gone already to inbound connecting passengers, or to the BAEC Golds.

However even with bus boarding (actually unknown for Easy in my experience; maybe different stations) a low sequence number will get you on the first bus. I don't think there's a bus about which can hold all 148 pax.

Sitting on the aisle and blocking the other two seats seems to be more a US problem with Southwest and their ilk. US first-in passengers generally prefer the aisle for choice, Europeans the window. Anyone know why ?

On the basis of my last three Easy flights from Luton, it would seem there is a very simple way to get on the plane in the first wave regardless of your boarding card number and without paying the extra £10. Cheat.

Before I am flamed, I haven’t done this but…. once you have had your boarding card checked, there is nothing to stop you joining either the 1 to 30 queue or the 30 to 60 or whatever. There is no one there to police the system to prevent queue jumping – it’s all down to passenger honesty.

And on the subject of humorous PAs. On a recent flight into Luton everyone was very entertained (even my grumpy travelling companion) by a flight attendant who had transformed the usual ‘don’t smoke in the toilets’ spiel into a stand-up routine.

It worked (a) because she was funny, (b) because the whole thing was delivered with genuine comic timing and (c) because she knew how to use a microphone properly.

Its where (a) + (b) + (C) aren't present that it becomes a bit painful.

However, on this flight because what was being said had clearly been thought out beforehand, and because everyone could clearly hear what was said – it was a better and more memorable set of safety announcements than you usually get.

Ryaniair have been operating a 'priority boarding card' system for a while and seems to help them get pax on in a more organised fashion. Think it applies to the first 90 or so pax that turn up to check in. Doesn't quite give you the seat you want but does encourage some people to check in a little earlier and report to the gate on time. Ryanair and Southwest have been doing it sucessfully for years and are probably the two most sucessful LCCs!

Easy are yielding about £2 per pax. Of which only 25% is derived from the sale of the ticket. Therefore some numpty willing to pay an additional £10 for priority boarding actually represents the profit off 20 seat sales...

Crazy business.

WWW

payingpax: Did your PA go something like this? "If you need to use the toilets during the flight please don't mistake the aicraft door for the toilet door. If you do, you'll have a lot more laundry than you started with." And followed up with "anybody caught soking in the toilets will be asked to leave the aircraft immediately."
:p

Neidin
I see the CAA stats on WAT and GWY for Jan are out, seems RE were not blown out of the water as you predicted. I suppose as usual you won't reply! Facts and you don not mix!