Sorry for being OT, but I was hoping a few people here have used the Easyjet online check-in facility.

From memory, I have been told that if you checkin on-line that you are automatically put into boarding group D (ie - the last the board). Makes compeltely no sense I know, but I do remember reading this somewhere.

Am off to Marrakech on Friday (on a �60 return fare), and pondering whether or not to checkin online. Thanks.

Yes, that's correct, you are allocated a Group D boarding "priority".

It was in this month's Business Traveller.

easyJet's frankly pathetic reasoning is that travellers who use online check-in are ones likely to want to minimise their time in the airport and are therefore likely to turn up late. Therefore they are put in row D in order not to disturb the orderly boarding of passengers who have checked in and arrived at the gate on time.

This must be one of the most bizarre corporate-nonsense excuses ever given. I reckon there must be another cause - maybe something to do with the allocation of 30 in each bucket or some system restrictions. It is frankly laughable that they could come up with something so bad.

Now that explains it! Not very customer friendly is it!

Edited to add: Not that I fly Easychav very often (only once in the last year - honest). Would not want you to get the wrong idea (and my BAEC score to plummet).

Didn't I read somewhere that EZ now allows priority boarding for a �5 fee?

You're hardly likely to pay that if OLCI got you into the A group, are you?! If they were REALLY clever, they would give you the chance to pay the extra fiver when you started the OLCI process and be quite upfront about the fact that you would be in Group D otherwise.

EDITED TO ADD: Ah yes ...

EasyJet Considers Selling Priority Boarding
Lori Ranson, 3 March 2006, Aviation Daily

EasyJet is finalizing details of a trial "speedy boarding" program targeted to customers willing to pay extra to be the first passengers to board the carrier's planes.

The carrier wants to iron out online check-in being introduced throughout March and April, a carrier spokeswoman said, and then focus on offering trial priority boarding for about GBP5. CEO Andrew Harrison was quoted in U.K. press reports indicating EasyJet would begin the trial on its Luton-Edinburgh route. -LR

BA or bust, I think you are a very brave man admitting to even flying them once a year!

I work for GB but always fly Easyjet if I can help it out of LGW. Why?

1: EZY concessions are half the price of BA
2: EZY are reserved seats not pikey standby "ooh I don't know if you can get on as you're not my best mate from BA longhaul" BA tickets
3: For the �31 I save I can afford (I feel) a coffee and bun if I really want to eat something. Or just sleep.
4: Online check-in: depending where they board in lgw, you normally find they don't actually respect the boarding letters so even with a D if you're early at the gate you get on first
5: even if you can't beat the bun fight to get on first, for the length of their flights does it really matter?
6: EZY crew are as professional as GB charter, I find the ones who slag EZY off the most are the ones who have hardly ever flown them
7: More importantly - EZY in my weekly experience of flying with them has never been as delayed as my daily working reality of never leaving or arriving on time.

If you are desperate to be the first one there, try the nighttime check-in - opens at 8pm and you will get an A pass then. As for why fly EZY to RAK rather than GB charter, how about price, and SCHEDULE... avoiding a dodgy stop in Casablanca and saving time....?

Don't tell anyone.. but I've also flown Go (once), Buzz (once) and Ryanscare (twice)! But that was over a 7 year period. In that time all my LCC flights represent less that 1% of all my flying. Phew!

This is my first time ever on easychav. And I booked it because of the special deals on the route to Marrakech when it first started (�60 compared with �250+ on BA). It is unfortunately a 3.5 hour route which means I do want a good seat - I don't really care if it is say 2 hours or less. Looks like airport checkin it is then.

I have flown ryanair a few times - mostly because of destinations offered (eg. to Valladolid last year) are not mainline routes. Never easyjet - though i do hear that they at least have seat pockets.

Ooh goody. Another seating question.

And the best seat on an EZY plane is....?

Just out of interest, what happens if everybody does online check-in? They can't put them all in boarding priority D surely? Kind of defeats the object...

In my experience of budget airlines, it is very easy to get an exit row seat even if you board last. This is because, despite what you might think, 90% of pax don't seem to realise that certain rows have more leg room.

Even better - most budget carriers board from both ends. This means that the last seats to be taken are the seats in the middle of the plane, which just happen to be the exit rows.

Even even better - the new FR 737's have two emergency exit doors on each side of the plane, so double the number of exit row seats.

Your best bet is to strike up a conversation with someone travelling en-famille and pre board with them

I've flown easyJet, Ryanair and Go all without incident. Does anybody have any experience of Wizz Air? I'm flying them next month from LTN ( ) to Zagreb...

next to the pilot