I'm scared of Easyjet
 

I've been watching the Airline this TV program for a while now, after seen all the bad customer service, decline for late check in, flight delay and high fee charge. Now I am really scared to fly easyjet now as I have booked my flight with them fly from Berlin to Rome. So I'm thinking to book a flight with a REAL Airline, any ideas?

Cheers

William

EasyJet is a great airline, especially if you book in advance.

Most of the upset customers you see on the telly are once a year flyers who turn up at the last minute and miss check in.

Seasoned travellers such as yourself will be wise to this and will ensure you turn up on time. And do not forget your passport.

They also invariably focus on the worst, as that is what makes it entertaining. Most flights pass without incident.

I usually fly BA intra Europe, and my one experience on Easyjet was superb; OK the seats aren't huge, but at the price and for a short hop it is great.

There can be snarl ups if an aircraft goes tech or the weather is bad, but again as a seasoned traveller you will have travel insurance and know to get youself booked on the next flight out ASAP a delay is announced, and will undertsand that there may be a fee involved for doing this.

Don't be dissuaded by the TV coverage.

My only caveat is that it is best not to fly EasyJet on a Friday night in the middle of winter to a snow bound destination if you turn up to the check in late, for the last flight out that Bank Holiday weekend without a passport and have sold your budgy on eBay to afford the £2.99 fare to get you to you wedding, which happens at 0800 the next morning. Otherwise you should be fine.

When somethings goes wrong, there will be no one to help you. If a flight is cancelled they won't put you on another airline. If they are late, they may apologise but basically they don't care. However, saying that, if you know what to expect then you have no right to complain when things do go wrong.

LOL! That's hilarious. :D


To the OP: I would take that program with a serious pinch of salt, and follow apudme's advice.

i just booked my third ever easyjet flight. never had a problem with the other two. in fact, it was relativley hassle free. just follow theyre check in rules. thats all they ask.

pj

I have four flights coming up with them, three in Dec and am not too worried - you just have to bear in mind to have a relatively flexible schedule and know your options in advance (i.e. onward travel flight plans etc.

I wouldn't be too scared of Easyjet- actually have found them to be (relatively) pleasant- you do get some unitiated flyers on board, but it is fine. Rome to Berlin should be an easyflight (no pun intended)- don't worry about it. Oh, and unlike Alitalia they are NOT:
-Constantly on strike
-Consistently late
-Committed to crummy service

They saved me from taking the Polish railways from Krakow to Berlin. A lifesaver if there ever was one!

Pretty bird... Pretty Bird... :p

Unless you plan on traversing the Continent ala Lloyd and Harry, you should be fine traveling on Easyjet following their rules. As other posters have mentioned, don't be late and follow their guidelines and you shouldn't have any problems. As for the delayed/cancelled flights, I've been fortunate not having to experience that.

I've flown them almost every time I'm on holiday in Europe and have had good experiences; they even allowed me to fly to Warsaw instead of Krakow when I missed my flight due to a Tube outage :mad: without extra charge/fee.

Flown in excess of 200 flights without incident and had great staff get me on the flight when I have been late so all you do is follow the rules and enjoy. They are far better than the real airlines !!!! such as KLM, LH, BMI, Iberia to name a few of so called real airlines

For a REAL scary experience try getting back the 'government taxes :D ' if you cancel your flight with Ryanair. They advertise max taxes of £12.99/flight ex-UK. What they forget to tell you about is their £20 admin charge!

O'Leary 1-0 Passenger - again.

Easyjet's customer service is mellow compared to Ryanair's which consists of "feck off, if you don't want to fly with us fly with someone else" which generally means higher costs

I've flown EasyJet before and the only concern I have is that they don't seem too keen on keeping their passengers informed regarding delays.

Had a flight from Belfast to London-Gatwick that was delayed and 20 minutes after the flight was supposed to leave, no announcement, no information on the screens, nothing. Got a little nervous so I had to track down an EasyJet employee (who are scarce outside of check-in) to get the skinny.

Other than that, no problem.

The only problems I've ever had with EZ is their customer service. I've had several cases where I have had to write them (e-mail). Sometimes they take about two months to answer.

They have never agreed w my position. Not once. Ever. No matter what the issue. My pet peeve with them: having to pay 4 pounds extra to use a US debit card.

Their system doesn't recognize US VISA debit cards. Shazaaam 4 pounds extra ($7.13 USD) just for the privilege of paying. I think this is a rip-off for US customers. At least on my debit card, the charge won't go thru if you check debit, but it will go thru if you 'accept' the addded on 4 pounds. (You are forced to click on 'credit' in you want to buy the ticket).

Anyway, I've asked them to look into it. They write back with some lame excuse. Furthermore, they wont refund the 4 pounds if you complain. Nor will they update their website with an adequate explanation as to why foreign debit cards get the fee.


Dear tvl4free:

Thank you e-mail dated the *** June 2005, about confirmation number E******. I would like to apologise for the delay in replying and can assure you this is not of our usual standards.

In response to your request for us to refund the £4.00 credit card fee paid on
the above booking, it is with regret that I have to inform you that this will not be possible, you have entered your card as a Visa and this is not a debit card, this is why the credit card fee has been charged.***

Just for your information the amount charged is not that much in relation to
other low cost airlines who charge a fee of 10% of the cost of the booking, if
this would have been the case on your booking you would have been charged £5.20 so as you can see a set fee of £4.00 does work out cheaper for easyJet passengers.

I have updated our customer service database about this correspondence and hope that this issue has been resolved to your satisfaction.

For your information, we now offer a quick answer section on the home page of our web site. To use this function you simply go to contact us on the right
hand side and then on the next page simply type in a relevant words for the
question you have for example, "golf clubs", this will then give you the option
of a few answers, if the relevant one is there you click on the option to get an answer to your question. If not you can then type in a full question, for
example "do you take golf clubs?" and select the search button, you should then get your question answered for you.

If this does not work you still have the option of contact us via the contact us e-mail page.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again, either by phone on 71 244 2366 (calls cost 10p per minute; calls from mobiles and other networks may cost more) or via the contact us section of the easyJet web site.

We look forward to welcoming you on board in the future.

Yours sincerely



Julie Coyte
easyJet Customer Services Team


*** my card is definately a debit card


This was followed up with:


Dear tvl4free:

Thank you for your further e-mail regarding your Debit card.

As explained to you in our previous e-mail, easyJet Airline plc is not obliged to compensate you in these circumstances, as only UK Debit cards are not charged for the usage.

Your feedback surrounding this incident is important to us and we do empathise with your situation.

Thank you for your further comments regarding this issue. We are sorry that we are unable to assist you further on this case however, if you have any other questions or issues that you would like to raise, we will be happy to assist you further.

Yours sincerely



Nuala Pillkington
easyJet Customer Services Team



Well, two can play this game. Just dispute the four pound charge with the bank. At least in my case w my bank, it works - as I have it in writing that debits are free.

ive had nothing but great experiences with EZ i was going from BFS-LGW then Luton-CDG but when i was leaving BFS i saw there was a flight right from BFS to Luton. i went up and inquired about it and they said there is a change fee, but they would wave it. excellent. ive taken about 10 flights on EZ and has always been clean and easy. just one thing. they didnt announce the boarding of the luton-cdg flight, no big deal. i just wanted to get there in time so i get an earlier boarding. nothing to be scared of, just know what your getting into when taking the flight. no frills no nothing, just a plane to get you where your going.i always try to get the first seat by the door, extra leg room and first off. also sometimes they use both exits in boarding and offloading. so try for either end for quick exit. just check in early.

grb

TVL4Free.

The US Banking system Debit Card system is completely different to the UK Debit Card System.

If you use a US VISA debit Card at any point other than a Swipe Machine, it ceases to be a Debit Card and Becomes a Credit Card with VISA applying Credit Card charges to The Retailer.

Their is no Interbank Debit system between any banks outside the USA, therefore all charges have to go via The Visa centre hence the higher charges.

Incidently I do not know of one US Airline Site that accepts foreign issued Debit Card, the only exception being American when you book through their UK site www.americanairlines.co.uk and this links to the UK Banking system.

I haven't flown EJ, but I know a lot of people who have and they swear by it...primarily because of the low prices. I'm not suprised that service isn't top rate. Especially since it's so affordable. But I wouldn't worry too much. It sounds like the flights work out fine more often than not!

Never had a problem with easyjet. Just show up early to get priority boarding. Cheap and clean.

No problems with EasyJet here
 

I did this same SXF-KRK-SXF round trip in July, as well as an ORY-SXF-ORY r/t. Both round trips, for three people (a total of six round trips) was just under US$450. We booked way in advance and saved a bundle.

I must admit, I had reservations about flying them too, but we had no problems on the flights at all and they were all pleasant. It seemed like each of our aircraft were brand new Airbuses, which surprised my because I thought they only flew 737s.

We did have about a 90-minute delay on our SXF-ORY flight, and they were not very clear as to why we were delayed or exactly when we would be taking off (that switched several times), but I knew they were having thunderstorms in the Paris area, so I was kind of expecting this.

The only two things I didn't like was the 90-minute time window for checking in for your flight. You cannot check in prior to two hours for departure and check in closes 30 minutes prior, so there is only 90-minutes to check in. We got to the airport a bit early and had to wait just to check in for our flights.

The other was that we were flying KRK-SXF on one ticket and SXF-ORY on another ticket on the same day. It was not possible to check our bags all the way through. We had to pick up our bags in SXF, exit security, and go wait in line to check in again on our flight to ORY. It was a good thing we had a 3+ hour layover, which only got longer due to the delay.

Even with those two minor gripes, I would definitely fly EasyJet again. You can't beat the price, and I have no gripes with their service (although I have never dealt with their Customer Service department).

Now Ryan Air...that is an airline to be scared of! Flew them once, DUB-CWL, will not fly them again no matter how cheap they are!

EasyJet is much better than RyanAir in my opinion.

Every airline has similar rules. Most passengers have learned to charm or argue their way through these rules. They don't bend. So what?

What was your problem with Ryan Air? There are plenty of stories out there of people being jacked off with their service, but actually scared? Both my flights with Ryan Air have been very satisfactory especially for the price.

There is nothing wrong with EasyJet or Ryanair - and this is from a man most likely to be found up-front on long haul.

Both have brand new fleets of planes (because brand new planes are far cheaper to maintain), so you get a cleaner nicer cabin than BA, LH etc. The new Ryanair planes have 12 exit-row seats with extra leg-room (because there are four exit doors in the middle of the plane) and you can normally get one because most pax are leisure travellers who don't know such things exist.

Food is not free but is normally better than the free stuff you get on other airlines - especially LH Economy.

My biggest problem with both of them is the lack of self-service check-in. EasyJet is trialling it but has not yet rolled it out, Ryanair is nowhere. Why?! They already have everyones card details so it is easy to verify ID, and it would cut costs even further. Ryanair at London Stansted always involves at least a 20 minute queue to check-in.

I am scared of Ryanair too... after nearly running off the end of the runway at LBC when they tried to land on 1800m of wet tarmac with a tailwind just to cut a few minutes off our travel time and save a few minutes worth of fuel.

I've never used Easyjet but certainly wouldn't ever hesitate to use them.
The self-check-in things is a great idea, I've used it with ANA here in Japan, very convenient. You'd have to think it would dave Ryan Air money and we all know how they like that. ;)
I guess I was lucky both times I used RyanAir at Stansted that I walked straight up to the check-in desk, no waiting at all.

What's the matter with ya? Ya here, aren't ya? ;) :D Sounds a bit dodgy though, glad my flights were on nice sunny days. ^

:D :D :D :D :D

EmailKid

If Easyjet strikes you as too dodgy, check out Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com ) for your route. They're also officially an LCC, but definitely a cut above the rest in that they seem interested in repeat business (i.e. not scaring/annoying people off their planes). Good marks for safety, efficiency, friendlyness (for an LCC).

I flew with both EasyJet, Ryan Air and GermanWings. Of the three, German Wings was by far the most superior LCC. Easy Jet from Athens to London (Gatwick) was great, too. If you can get emergency row seats, it's even better. Ryan Air from Paris to Barcelona was not that great, as the plane seemed very dirty and there were a lot of annoying Samsung ads in the plane, a la metro/tube kind of ads. The flight on Ryan Air from Barcelona to Rome was good, though, so it probably depends on the route.

In either case, I'd much rather fly LCCs in Europe than pay a lot more to fly marginally "better" (if that's an appropriate term) legacy carriers like BA or Lufthansa.

Yes, I've been surprised by EasyJet in this regard...I flew from AMS-BFS-AMS with friends, one who is 6'4", and we got assigned to boarding group B or C. He was dreading this, assuming he'd end up in a middle seat with no leg room. But sure enough, when we walked on we were able to get the entrance row which has the most legroom on the plane. Why 40+ people would pass these seats by amazes me! Then the same thing happened on our return flight (although we were group A that time).

To stay on topic, I've flown "Sleazy Jet" about 6 times, and all the flights have been just fine...never late and never a hassle.

My Easy Jet flights have been fine. I will be flying them again in a few weeks.

I do NOT like their extra charge for the privelege of using a credit card. How do they get away with this? I thought the credit card companies put terms in their contracts that prohibited merchants from imposing such charges.

Not in the UK. I think they may have done in the past (many many years ago), but they specifically allow it now, the only condition being that this is made clear to the customer beforehand.

Generally Good
 

Have been flying with Easyjet for the last few years and there are really few things to complain about.

Less delays than most airlines, not very efficent information when delays happen and compared to they mainly fly to real airports unlike ryanair...

They have also said that they will soon change the website to it shows the full price including taxes and charges when you look a different options

They told you that did they ???? I think not

They told me what? That that was the reason for a tailwind landing?

Ryanair's fondness for landing on the most convenient runway (rather than landing into wind) is something that is well known in aviation circles. With a long enough runway this is perfectly safe. On 1800m of wet runway slightly less so...

I just found out today that I was booked on EasyJet BFS to GVA.
This also scared the tar out of me, just like the OP.
Do I need my Conf# at check-in, or just ID?
Since I didn't book it, I don't have the Conf#

I am also a bit concerned with their baggage policy.
If I understand it correctly, I can have a regular rollaway bag, filled with lead, and as long as I can lift it into the overhead, no problem. Is this correct?
I'm also only allowed one checked bag, not to exceed 20kg (44lbs), correct?
What I don't understand is their "sporting goods" extra baggage rules...if I have sporting goods, I'd be allowed to check an additional "bag" with a passenger limit of 50kg, correct?
Who or how do they define sporting goods?
The reason I am curious/concerned is because I am going from BFS for/with motorcycle racers and they have to carry all their protective gear, which can be heavy. Can or would they consider this "sporting goods?" The website isn't very clear and I d not hold a lot of hope in getting a reply from their online email.
I tried to call the int'l phone number on their website, but that is an expensive endless circle of prompts and menus with no chance to get to a human.

Anyone have any knowledge on these issues?

Just took Easyjet from Paris to Geneva, great experience, just like southwest except they charge for everything, ie coffee, nuts etc.... Would take them again.

Two of us traveling, they made me fit the carry on into one of those wire baskets, didnt fit, so I removed a couple of items in the outside pocket and crammed it in. We had 3 checked items, one was 58lbs, one 45lbs, one 48 lbs, no problem and no additional charges. Cant say it will happen to others, but the check in experience was good. They dont open the check in process until 90 minutes befor departure.

So are you saying that the pilot decides which way to fly into an airport ???? and do you really think any pilot would take a risk to save a few minutes worth of fuel ??

Your post says I am scared of Ryanair too... after nearly running off the end of the runway at LBC when they tried to land on 1800m of wet tarmac with a tailwind just to cut a few minutes off our travel time and save a few minutes worth of fuel.

I am saying that this is what you assume and I am saying you are talking rubbish

Air Traffic Control designate the "runway-in-use" which is generally the one more closely aligned into wind, but pilots may request the use of another runway, and if there are no traffic reasons against the use of the other runway such requests will not be refused. Flying into quiet airports late at night Ryanair pilots WILL often use the more convenient runway rather than the one into wind.

Are you a pilot? Have you ever worked in air traffic?

I can answer "yes" to both questions...