Going home for Christmas. Booking a flight online way in advance. Getting to the airport on time. Checking in, going through security, boarding the plane, take-off……but getting nowhere! That’s what it is like today, if you fly with easyJet (or hassleJet - courtesy of a passenger I talked to during this odyssey - as I will refer to).
[Note: This post was meant to go on air a couple of days ago. But due to the fact that I got sick at Christmas (including being feverish), that got delayed quite significantly].
Everything started so well. I got to Luton Airport at 2:15pm (my flight was scheduled for 4pm) on Friday, December 21st. I checked my bag, went through security (which is clearly not fun anymore these days), getting to the gate, boarding hassleJet flight EZY 2197 from Luton to Vienna and taking-off, but with some delay already. First: never trust an airline with a wanna-be-cool airline code like EZY (so what? pronounced “ea-se-y” or what?).
On our way…or not
So we were in the air, after about 1 hour of flight during which I have already dosed off to catch some sleep, one of the stewardess’ announced: “Because your security is important to us, we will need to go back to Luton. There is a minor problem with the plane, nothing big, but we want an engineer check the plane.” Meh. Damn it. So we got back to Luton about the time we were supposed to land in Vienna, around 6pm GMT. Sidenote: instead of giving away free drinks on our way back to Luton (or something similar) a glass of water was still GBP 1.50…
We arrived at our parking position outside of the hassleJet hangar to wait for the service engineer. He got on the plane and after about 30mins, a new guy, apparently a new pilot, announced: “OK, we got the problem sorted out, but unfortunately, the pilot already flew to Geneva today and is not allowed to fly anymore today. I am gonna be your new pilot, so don’t listen to what he says anymore *laughter*. Still, we need a new crew, which is being called from stand-by. This will take 1h30min max. for them to get here.”
So…they got us out of the plane and got us back to the terminal building to stretch our legs, use the toilets etc. When we got there, we were only allowed to get into the gate area, but not out of it. Only after some minor protests, we were allowed to use the toilet facilities in the terminal building. “They are treating us like cattle”, someone said, which was not far off. We were not offered anything, at least drinks would have been nice.
You will not fly with us today
Anyway, we sat there for, lets say, 45 minutes when they called us all back to our “waiting area” gate, only to announce that our flight is cancelled, i.e. rescheduled for 8:30am on the next day. WTF? Why this happened, I am still not sure. Some people said because of the heavy fog that came in over Luton which also led to cancellations at Heathrow. Others said that they couldn’t find another crew to replace the one that had already flown with us. Official statement? None.
The cancellation did not surprise me not that much, because I overheard a conversation one of the ground staff had with her supervisor talking about cancellation, hotel accommodation etc. But still. I was pretty pissed. But too tired already to freak out.
The journey continues. They brought us back through immigration to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim area and told us to go back to the check-in desks where they will tell us about hotel accommodation they will provide. When we got there, there were only 2 counters open (for about 120 passengers) with the guys working there having absolutely no clue about how to handle the situation. It seems they were not prepared for anything like that at all. After more than 1 hour they finally had told everybody to go to the hotel ibis close to the airport where accommodation will be provided.
Airport Hotel
When we all got there, the guys at the hotel reception had no information about what we were doing there. hassleJet did not tell them anything. Finally, after another hour or so, they faxed them the list of passengers and they were able to proceed with checking us in into rooms. Luckily I got a quite nice single room, which was at least a bit positive.
They also told us that dinner and breakfast will be paid by hassleJet. Well, it was free, but the guy in the kitchen of the ibis hotel was completely overwhelmed with 120 passengers requesting food. So I ended up with getting half of a vegetarian pizza. Hey, but better than nothing. At 11pm I was already that tired, I couldn’t be bothered anymore. I went to my room and tried to get some sleep.
I did not sleep that well at all, cause I was afraid of sleeping in and missing my flight. So I got up at 4am in the morning and got the biggest breakfast ever. There were also no people there in the dining area at this very early hour, so I had some quiet time, which I highly appreciated.
Flight to Vienna, Scene 1, Take 2
Check-in for our 8:30am flight was supposed to start at 6am, so I got to the airport - again - shortly before 6, only to find that it took them another 30 minutes to open two check-in counters for us. As I was standing there in the queue it became obvious very quickly, that the number of clueless hassleJet employees did not decrease over night. Apparently they couldn’t get access to the check-in data from the day before…so we had to wait there until some supervisor showed up to give some guidance…which meant: writing all new boarding passes and baggage tags by hand. Luckily I was about the 4th person in the queue so I was able to dump my heavy bag there and proceed through security - again…deja vu?
For some reason, I thought about punching someone in the face quite frequently during these early hours. I wouldn’t have been wise at all, I know, but I was looking out for someone I could blame for this shit 
Our - new - flight boarded from Gate 17. I got there first and again: troubles with the booking system. The new flight (which also had a new flight number) apparently did not show up in the system and they couldn’t get access to the data from the day before. After some talks with their supervisors over walkie-talkie, switching back to the date of the day before and also changing the flight number to the old one, somehow solved the problem and we were able to get into the boarding area.
We were supposed to take-off - again - at 8:30am…at 9, they finally opened the doors so we were able to get on the plane. On the plane: same story. Sitting and waiting. They had a discrepancy regarding the number of passengers and it took them another 30 minutes to work this out. So finally, we took off around 9:45am GMT, with another 1h15min delay…The flight itself was smooth and we landed at Vienna International Airport at 12:45am local time. Luckily, my luggage also got there and not lost somewhere in Luton…you need to focus on the good parts
Finally
With a delay of 17hrs 20 mins (the original flight was supposed to land on Friday at 7:25pm), I believe easyJet’s tagline “Come on, fly with us” seems to be a bit inappropriate here. It is certainly true, that a technical defect could have happened with any other airline…but the way we, the passengers, got treated, was not okay at all. At least free drinks, more information, more and better prepared staff would have helped to calm down the situation a bit. But instead: nothing. And the best part is: according to their Conditions of Contract, you are not entitled for a refund because the events that caused the delay were “beyond their control”. Which I doubt, but how to prove it?
So anyway…this was my first experience with easyJet, which mutated to hassleJet, and I will think twice the next time I am about to book a flight with them.