Easyjet Boarding -= Belfast International

FUNKYDADDIO

My fear with being boarding group A is that you are the 1st to get crushed when the everyone surges forward....lol......

jeffer

I never fly EasyJet because I can't STAND the mad undignified stampede for seats.

RTNI

Reminds me of a funny story.

About 5 years ago I was taking a flight to Manchester from BFS with easyjet. The girl appeared at the boarding door behind the desk and a queue started to form quickly even though she had not made any announcements. with about 50 people in the queue she yelled at the top of her voice "I have not told any of you to come forward, go and sit down right now." Most people did or scurried away to the side of the room (it was the area where there was/still is a bar (but not the Paul Rankin one)) and stood looking sheepish.

Some people ignored her and she then boomed words to the effect of "this plane is not getting boarded until every one of you sit back down in the seat you were in." Eventually after more shouting at the passengers they all did and then as sweet as anything over the tanoy she announced "Easyjet are pleased to announce departure of flight EZYXXX to Manchester ......"

I was in stitches with laughter - needless to say I was not in the queue! Fair play to her for standing up to the passengers!

Chunks

I used to fly easyjet a lot (to Munich). Speedy Boarding guaranteed a seat on the bus ahead of the rest of the 'guests' so therefore useless. (With many speedy boarders seated away from the all important seats by the doors) I used to lurk by the back door of said bus and 9 times out of 10 was one of the first twenty or so to board the plane up the rear steps. Assuming you don't have young kids (as stated before) and opt not to take up the speedy boarding option, you're in boarding queue 2 and in the scrum therefore.

Speedy boarding would work if you don't have the bus transfer and if you can afford it, worth it to save the hassle.

Not true in your case but if you travel alone, and can fit all your stuff in an overhead bag, check in online and save your money.

BOBS

After all the posts we have decided we probably wont go with speedy boarding BUT for anyone reading who is going to ..............
To book speedy boarding at time of booking flights it is £20 per passenger so quoted £100 for 5 of us .
***BUT ***
for me to amend booking it is only £55 for all 5 of us for speedy boarding on both outgoing and incoming flights ...... bit odd that its so much cheaper when amending booking but there you go! !

yorkie98

Save your money, I'm a reasonably frequent flyer and there is absolutely no point buying speedy boarding as betweeen the general ignorance (or inability to follow simple instructions) of passengers and the apathy of the staff, you'll get on the plane when/wherever you come out in the whole jostling/cajoling lottery that is boarding on seemingly all flights in or out of Belfast.
I'm amazed at the amount of people with group C boarding passes you'll always see standing around the front as soon as the speedy boarders are called and after the special assistance group have gone, they jump in when Group A are called. 90% of the time they get thru cos the staff are under pressure to get everyone thru as quickly as possible, on occasion I get to see the pleasure of a queue jumper getting sent back..

This only seems to happen on flights in/out of Belfast. I guess the same rules apply in NI with regards to simple boarding instructions as apply to driving rules such as indicating and stopping at red lights etc...

suki1964

As a frequent flyer on easyjet ( twice a month at least ) can i just say priority boarding is a JOKE and a con on the internal flights because of the gates at International. I cant remeber the gate number but the gate by the toilets there then you just queue the minute the gate is called - no chance of even getting down the stairs to get to the priority queue or even the seating. Basically because of the " must get the best seat on the plane "mentality of the customers, minute the gate is called you just stand and queue on the stairs up to an hour at times

Personally I find that striding purposely toward the rear of the plane gets me boarded and sat as quick as those that have paid for speedy boarding. I never take a bag that needs to go into an overhead with me, so I just slip into the nearest unoccupied row and can be settled and have a mag read whilst others are still fussing

Personally I would just organise the kids so that they aren't carrying lots of bits to flaff about with and just walk adult - 3 kids - adult - onto the plane and first adult head for the first empty row. Rear boarding us usually a lot easier as so many people just still dont realise that easy jet board and disembark both ends for speed

BOBS

Thanks Suki - will do that - should be fun!

jeffer

yorkie98 wrote: »

This only seems to happen on flights in/out of Belfast. I guess the same rules apply in NI with regards to simple boarding instructions as apply to driving rules such as indicating and stopping at red lights etc...

And another thing - have you travelled recently on the Enterprise train from Dublin to Belfast on a Friday afternoon? The stampede when the waiting room door opens onto the platform is not for the faint-hearted!:eek: