EasyJet A320 economy (it actually hurt less than I thought it would)

This isn’t going to be typical EasyJet A320 economy review. I actually enjoyed my flight with them from Amsterdam to London quite a bit. Really!

The best part? It was nice to finally experience an ultra low cost carrier that didn’t have me cussing under my breath as I waved goodbye to the flight attendants standing at the boarding door (who were likely cursing at me under their own breath)…

U28868
Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS) – London, England (LGW)
Friday, March 15, 2019
Aircraft: A320-214
Registration: OE-IJK
Duration: 44 minutes
Seat: 21F (Economy / Main Cabin)

I even made a video of my experience:

 

My full review of EasyJet A320 economy from Amsterdam to London Gatwick

My EasyJet A320 experience began at 5am as I stumbled out of the Amsterdam Schiphol Sheraton and down into the main terminal. Other than a few early birds like me (and a handful of others stretched out and sleeping on rows of chairs in the darkness), the place was largely unoccupied.

There were no lines. Nobody bumping into me as I stood below the flight information boards searching for my flight. And certainly nobody to inform me that “sorry sir, filming is not allowed inside the terminal.”

FYI, if you’re not checking any bags, you can’t check in at the airport. Boarding passes must be obtained online at easyJet.com or via the EasyJet app (which is pretty good by the way), so at least I didn’t have to take the time to find a kiosk to get my boarding pass.

For what it’s worth, even though they say you MUST check in online, I’m pretty sure there’s a way to do it at the airport if you bat your eyes all cute-like and give them one hell of a sad excuse as to why you showed up to the airport unprepared. They’ll probably charge you a $25 “convenience” fee, but…I’m sure it’s possible.

Thanks to being fully prepared, this EasyJet experience was turning out to be just as easy as they said it was going to be. I mean, when you paint “EASY” in big orange letters on the side of all your planes, it better be. I also have to give credit to AMS for being so ridiculously easy to navigate. If there’s one thing I learned even before stepping on the plane, it’s that long layovers are unnecessary in Amsterdam.  

The preflight experience

It seemed odd to me was the fact that there were a lot (ok, 5 or 6) EasyJet planes parked at the gates looking ready to to fly (very soon-ish). However, no gate assignments had been listed on the boards, so the only thing everyone could do was just wander around aimlessly – while checking the boards every 2 minutes or so hoping to see an update…

Warning: there are no seats in the gate area. So that means that as soon as they announce the gate for your flight, you need to be committed to stand if you choose to enter the gate right after they call it.

I stood in line for about 25 minutes before they let us out to the plane. Although slightly cold, I was perfectly content since I was standing right next to the door with an awesome view of our ride to London Gatwick this morning.

The boarding process

One of the really nice things about these EasyJet gates here in Amsterdam is that there are no jet bridges. Additionally, if you’ve got a seat in the rear half of the aircraft like I did this morning, you have the privilege of boarding via the rear stairs.

I will say that getting the opportunity to walk out to the plane under the wing greatly enhanced this experience – though I’m not sure other passengers would agree with me considering how rainy and windy it was out there on the tarmac. I did see some grumpy looking faces!

Seat overview

Guess what? The interiors of these EasyJet A320’s are shockingly nice. Orange and gray was a color combination I was not expecting – and it wouldn’t have surprised me at all to see crinkled old blue vinyl and yellow-stained white plastic on the walls (much how you saw in my review of Allegiant A319 Legroom Plus).

Seat pitch (leg room) wasn’t amazing or anything, but I’ve felt more uncomfortable in both Air France A321 economy and United Airlines A320 economy. It was easy enough to wiggle around a bit in an effort to get comfortable – though the space under the seat in front of me was tight and I was saying “sorry” with each swift kick to my backpack as I tried to wedge it in there.

Seeing how nice these A320 economy seats are for the very first time was surprising – and encouraging. Had I been thinking about EasyJet all wrong in the past? I think so. This was turning out to be a really great experience so far.

The departure out of AMS

The entire departure sequence out of Amsterdam was a gloomy mess this morning. High winds and driving rain prevented any decent scenery from appearing in front of my window, and the only thing I have to show you is gloom:

Food and drinks

Scheduled flying time over to London Gatwick was a very short 44 minutes, and I wasn’t expecting any sort of cabin service at all on this flight. Still, it was fun to have a look at the menu to see what kinds of food and drink they offer.

Maybe it was because they knew I was onboard trying to get content for my own nitpicky review, but I was shocked to see the flight attendants do a full cabin service (carts and all) with plenty of time to spare.

Back home in the US, we’d be lucky to be served…nothing but the reminder to feel thankful that we have the means to fly at all. “Ya want water? We’ll be landing in 45 minutes and there are a lot of drinking fountains at the airport!”

Final thoughts

Sometimes in life we have to cast our prejudices and pre-conceived notions asiside and approach things with an open mind. As we made the descent into LGW, all I could really think about was how ignorantly uninformed I was about this ultra low cost airline. Seriously – before this flight, I was under the assumption that the “easy” in EasyJet meant “easy to make fun of”, but…I was wrong.

This is an airline that lives up to its name, and I found every part of this experience to be incredibly easy and (for the most part) logical. EayJet has simplified the entire process of air travel, from the booking process to the in-flight experience, and all I can think is that we desperately need an airline like this in the US. Yeah, we have Spirit – but they don’t feel like the well-oiled machine that EasyJet is.