As I mentioned in my last post I wasn\u2019t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights<\/p>\n
EasyJey don\u2019t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane <\/p>\n
\nGroup SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding\/Speedy Boarding Plus <\/p>\n
Group SA: Passengers requiring special assistance and families (maximum 2 adults) where at least one child is aged 5 years or under. <\/p>\n
Group A: (reserved for passengers who have checked in online, and the first 30 people who check in at the airport) <\/p>\n
Group B: (Everyone else)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
On paper this looks like a good idea<\/p>\n
People who pay more get on first and get to pick the \u201cbest seats\u201d <\/p>\n
People with children or wheelchairs are kept separate <\/p>\n
Online check-in gets a priority which I see as a nice incentive (and it\u2019s less people the check-in staff to deal with) but in practise is of little use on main holiday as you can only use it if you only have hand luggage <\/p>\n
Everyone else just has to queue and pick from what is left<\/p>\n
My experience went like this <\/p>\n
When we knew which gate to go to we made our way over. Luckily we were waiting quite close to the gate so started the short walk. We then noticed a large family rushing to get to the front of the queue<\/p>\n
Once we made it to the gate we were quite near to the front. I figured about 25 groups in front of us and I looked behind to see the queue starting to stretch through the airport<\/p>\n
The flight was slightly delayed so people were getting hot and bothered. Especially when staff appeared near the gate but the gate remained closed (presumably they were waiting for the all clear from the plane)<\/p>\n
Finally one of the members of staff came forward and asked for the Speedy Boarding group<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t letting people on but checking passports against boarding passes to save time when the gate actually opened which seemed like a nice gesture but the problem was the queue <\/p>\n
The speedy boarding passengers started to come forward but the people who already had a place in the queue didn\u2019t want to move. There was also only one lady checking tickets so everyone surged toward her thinking they were boarding so wanted to be seen first<\/p>\n
She gave up and escaped and there was then some mumbled announcement which only came once and I never heard it properly<\/p>\n
Since Bryony I had a 3 year old and 5 month old, hand luggage and a pushchair we started to move forward but stepped out of the surge as I was worried about losing Alice. We\u2019d taken Evie out of the pushchair as she\u2019d started to get upset during the wait.<\/p>\n
The queue now lost all shape and when they finally started to board the Speedy Boarding group our place near the front had disappeared. Again the other boarding groups didn\u2019t want to move so there was a lot of pushing and shoving as people tried to get on and I actually saw one group who weren\u2019t in the Speedy Boarding group (the large family I mentioned earlier) trying to get through at the same time so they\u2019d be at the front of the queue for the second boarding group!<\/p>\n
Eventually I interrupted one of people trying to push past my wife (she was holding a baby! and they still pushed!) and he looked me straight in the eye with a look of contempt and said<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you a Speedy Boarder??\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have been really easy to be rude at this point and get into an argument but I replied with a simple<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, yes we are\u201d<\/p>\n
Which seemed to take him by surprise and he stopped and let Bryony though<\/p>\n
We managed to squeeze through only to see people rushing down the boarding ramp. While Speedy Boarders get on ahead of everyone else it\u2019s still very much first come first serve on the plane. We were trying to fold up the pushchair in the middle of all this and no-one really cared about the fact we had two small so I\u2019d be interested to hear any comments they have<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll definitely be thinking twice about using EasyJet in the future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I mentioned in my last post I wasn\u2019t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights EasyJey don\u2019t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane Their boarding procedure works in groups in this order Group SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding\/Speedy Boarding Plus Group SA: Passengers requiring<\/p>\n
<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"yoast_head":"\nEasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I mentioned in my last post I wasn\u2019t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights EasyJey don\u2019t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane Their boarding procedure works in groups in this order Group SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding\/Speedy Boarding Plus Group SA: Passengers requiringRead More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andy Parkes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andy Parkes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/\",\"name\":\"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Andy's Techie Blog\",\"description\":\"Professional Geek\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d\",\"name\":\"Andy Parkes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andy Parkes\"},\"description\":\"Andy Parkes is Technical Director at Coventry based IT support company IBIT Solutions. Formerly, coordinator of AMITPRO and Microsoft Partner Area Lead for 2012-2013. He also isn't a fan of describing himself in the third person.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/author\/andyparkes\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog","og_description":"As I mentioned in my last post I wasn\u2019t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights EasyJey don\u2019t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane Their boarding procedure works in groups in this order Group SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding\/Speedy Boarding Plus Group SA: Passengers requiringRead More","og_url":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/","og_site_name":"Andy's Techie Blog","article_published_time":"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00","author":"Andy Parkes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Andy Parkes","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/","url":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/","name":"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness - Andy's Techie Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-19T17:51:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/19\/easyjet-speedy-boarding-madness\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/","name":"Andy's Techie Blog","description":"Professional Geek","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d","name":"Andy Parkes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Andy Parkes"},"description":"Andy Parkes is Technical Director at Coventry based IT support company IBIT Solutions. Formerly, coordinator of AMITPRO and Microsoft Partner Area Lead for 2012-2013. He also isn't a fan of describing himself in the third person.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.andyparkes.co.uk\/blog"],"url":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/author\/andyparkes\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmvJ6-8c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}