To wonder why anyone does Speedy Boarding?

[SidandAndyssextoy]

Have flown with easyJet a couple of times, most recently last week. Both times, there's been similar scenarios. Eg last time, the call went out for Speedy Boarding, forcing the Speedy Boarders to push their way through the crowds muttering/hissing 'let me through, I'm a Speedy Boarder, don't you know' etc. Speedy Boarders then disappear down the passage and regular boarding starts. Regular boarders troop on to a bus, like sardines, and move 100m across the tarmac and stop by the plane. Short, inexplicable delay, before a less crowded bus appears containing the Speedy Boarders, to the general mockery of the pleb boarders bus - they must have been sat on that bus for 15 minutes waiting for ours to fill up. Speedy Boarders are then released from their bus, as are we, 30 seconds later, and we all board the plane together. So what is the point of it? None of them had small children or anything like that. Last time I flew Ryanair they called priority boarding, and the entire plane bar us stood up. Who is paying for this nonsense? The plane isn't going to leave without you. In fact, they very much go out of their way not to do that.

Lweji, we came to the same conclusion. Change your flight, sir? But you've CHECKED IN.

You get this when you book seats. It's no biggy, really, is it??

Don't you automatically get SB when you pre book seats though?

I know when we flew easy jet we didn't realise we were SB until we got to the air port.

No, you pay £12 to be a 'speedy boarder'

Well, thiswas the case last time I flew EJ. about a year ago.

We paid £3 per seat to reserve seats in advance, as that didn't seem a hideous price to pay. The £9 and £12 seats had extra leg room and baggage and, presumably, Speedy Boarding.

It really is no big deal, which is why I wondered why anyone bothered. The explanation that it comes with certain seats would seem to cover why anyone does it.

I presume it's all changed now. Before it was all unallocated seating with the option to speedy board for £12.

I used to love overtaking the speedy boarders on the walkway to the plane

DH and I have very different approaches to planes. I can happily sit in my seat at the gate until most of the queue has gone. I don't mind being last on board, and I'll ask the crew for help to find a place for my hand luggage if the bins are full.

DH will be champing at the bit waiting to board early. And yes, he'll pay for speedy boarding as it means less queueing. The system falls down a bit when you're catching a bus to the plane, though.

On landing, I'm content to sit there until everyone has started to move off the plane, rather than faff about in the overhead lockers and then stand blocking the aisles. If you've still got hold lugage to collect at the baggage carousel then this doesn't speed up your overall progress one bit. But DH will be scowling at me and telling me to get a move on.....

After an 'encounter with Rolf Harris and Tom Cruise' in 1991, Gary Grant decided that he would only sell toys that he felt comfortable with from a Christian perspective for children to play with. Items that are seen to promote witchcraft and satanism are not sold.

Please let someone here know what this encounter was?

Oh dear! Sorry, I thought this was the Entertainer thread!

I also never understand the people who leap up as soon as the plane touches the tarmac... for what? The pleasure of standing in the aisle for ten minutes, or so you can be first to stand in another queue at passport control? And then first to stand in another queue for half an hour for baggage claim? Other people are ridiculous. I get another ten minutes of reading, sat down, relatively comfy...

I'm definitely a chilled boarder. I have never understood people who arrive 3 hours early for something so that they can be at the front of a queue.

A queue is a queue is a queue, whether you are at the front or at the back.

And why don't they allocate seats these days? Surely that's the answer.

I was on a trip recently, with 20 others. We were told to all arrive 20 minutes early. Thats 400 minutes of man hours wasted - the equivalent of 7 hours. Needless to say we left 15 minutes after the time we were supposed to leave at.

Ah yes. We had extra leg room. For what it was worth.

The only time I'm bothered about it is if I'm flying somewhere for an appointment, so need to be on time. When you're one of the last ones on, you stand a pretty good chance of having to gate check your bag, or have to stick it at one end of the plane while you're sat at the other, so you then have to wait half an hour or more for everyone to get off before you can get to your bag, or go and wait at baggage claim.

Reginald- the really annoying thing is that before you got on our RyanAir flight, the stewardesses were making sure everyone only had 1 carry on bag (ie no extra shopping bags) and that their bag was an approved size.

After the stewardesses had checked, people were taking their shopping bags back out again so their bags weren't stuffed too full.

When we have flown with others, you are allowed extra bags of duty free and yet there is plenty of room on board for everyone's bags!

I always put mine by my feet anyway. It means even if there's turbulence and we have to put seat belts on I can access it.

I could kind of understand it pre-allocated seats except that at some airports, the speedy boarders were actually on the same bus as the plebs

Last time I went on EasyJet it was before the days of allocated sleep, at Marseilles. They had queues for priority boarders nearest to the exit in the departure hall, but all that happened when they were ready to go was they opened the doors and the non-priority lot surged forwards so the priority lot gained very little priority at all. I must say, if it were me I would have been furious at having paid for a priority that I hadn't been given.

I flew Easyjet at... can't remember which airport, possibly Barcelona. Anyway, all speedy boarding allowed people to do was board the buses to from the terminal to the aeroplane first. Which meant, because they were first on the bus, they were last off when we actually reached the plane. This was back before seats were allocated. I'd have been very hacked off if I had paid for speedy boarding for it then to mean I was one of the last onto the plane. But then, I never saw the point of it anyway, and I nearly always got a window seat when I was flying (very regularly for a few years, when I had a German boyfriend.)

And I too have always wondered the point of being able to checkin online so far ahead. I was grateful for it the time I got caught on the M25 in traffic and got to Luton and straight through security (hand luggage only) just at the time the flight should have closed. Thank you Easyjet for running late that time.

But on another occasion, I had checked in online for a BA flight, and the M4 got closed because of a bad crash, and I never made the flight. So what was the point of having checked in?

Yes, my previous Speedy Boarding experience was at Lyon, and the Speedy Boarders were put in a separate queue and then the other doors opened first by mistake. Uproar ensued, and they had to be decanted into bus two which then overtook bus one in a rush for the plane. Much, much nervous tension.

I am that Speedy Priority Boarding Nutcase. Even though I know it makes no sense and getting on the plane sooner won't make it not be a shitey Ryanair hell-flight. It's because I hate flying with a passion and so panic. What you're witnessing isn't so much people who are fools (although they probably are), it's people who are already imagining their impending death.

I regularly fly to Munich with Easyjet. It's fun to watch the speedyboarders go past the queue - where they are then held at the bottom of the steps until everyone else has been checked and fills up the steps.

Eventually a bus arrives and the speedyboarders do get to be first on the bus - but then last off it. So before allocated seating it was actually a negative to be a speedyboarder as it meant you were last on the plane

I tend to have a chilled out approach to boarding (basically am too lazy to stand in the queue for 40 minutes) but sometimes late boarders aren't allowed to keep their cabin luggage as the lockers are full. I almost always only have cabin luggage and hate waiting at the carousel for hold luggage so I do make a bit of an effort not to be last now. But still find speedyboarding mystifying.

Kind of off subject but what about those people who clap loudly and whoop when the plane lands!

Why just why?

Yes, exactly Fairyloo. It's always so bizarre when they do that. Reminds me of being in the States, normally people do it there after a particularly turbulent flight, which is still weird.

"Round of applause for not killing us!! Yippee!"

I am an early queue waiter as well. There are allocated seats on all planes that I travel on, but I want to make sure that I have an overhead "locker" right above my seat.

It's all about the fear! Before EJ switched to allocated seats we always did SpeedyBoarding as I hate planes and am definitely better at the front of the plane where there is more oxygen and the forces upon you at take off are less unnatural and disturbing. SB usually meant we could sit all together in the first few rows of the plane and I was slightly less frightened.

Why would you not get a locker? Surely everyone is only allowed one bag and uses the one above their seat?