Are budget airlines even worse?

[KajsaKavat]

I’m not a frequent flyer (but I used to be) and the times I’ve flown since my youth we’ve paid for extra legroom coz XDH is so tall so it came as a complete surprise to me how tightly squashed together the rows were on our BA economy flight abroad.
now that I’m looking to travel again I wonder are all the airlines as bad? Or are the cheaper ones worse?

Within Europe. 2-3 hrs. Not decided yet but not far.

I flew Ryanair for the first time in May this year, I'm not a small person and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of space I had. For us, nobody being able to recline seats worked really well.

No, EasyJet has more space than they used to, as the seats are slimmer.

They don’t recline though

www.which.co.uk/reviews/airlines/article/which-airline-has-the-best-seats-a7OR14w80BFz

We’ve flown BA, Ryanair and easyJet this year. BA was definitely the worst of the three in terms of legroom and general experience, which given it was also the most expensive was disappointing!

You pay more for the better seats with more legroom. So on easyJet that's the seats at the front usually. On Ryanair you pay to select seats, probably best to choose the middle emergency exit seats.

They are all fairly similar. I think the flight time, price etc would be bigger factors for me to choose from than the airline - it’s likely to impact me more if the flight time is crap (too early in the morning 🤣) than if I have an extra inch legroom or not. You can always pay a bit extra for the front row seats or exit row, which we usually do - it’s not much, around £10-15 per person per flight.

Yea this was one of the reasons BA worked for us, they fly at sensible times a day.

defjnitely promised myself I would go business class next time but with 3 teens in tow im not sure I can stretch to that financially, lol

We flew Easyjet to Palma earlier this year. Seating was tight as expected. Return flight was a different type of plane. Loads of space. Even 6'3" DH was comfortable. It was like flying in the "olden" days!

So the answer is a firm "it depends" 😊

Aha, thanks for making me more confused, lmao. 🤣🤣🤣

Id rather fly easyJet than BA and I fly a lot.

Because of legroom or just in general?

Bit of both. For short haul on BA I find the planes a bit old and skanky. And, just anecdotally, I find easyJet more punctual.

I used to fly a lot. I always chose easyjet because the seats don't recline so no selfish arsenal can take up what meagre space you have.

If you do the front row on easyjet you have lots of room.

I just flew to the US on American Airlines and flew back with BA ( it was a code share situation ). I felt the BA flight had more legroom. What was annoying was the requirement to pay for baggage. It was difficult to tell before we booked whether luggage was included or not. £80 per bag on a £800 ticket and it was still only 23kg allowance. No wonder so many people are laden with multiple bags in the cabin. At least with a proper budget airline you know up front that you’re getting rinsed for everything.

Legroom is much of a muchness. They all try to cram as many people in as feasible but it depends on the aircraft to some extent.

flew jet 2 recently and it was ok but the return flight was subcontracted to Wamos air which was definitely cattle class

traditional airlines are more lenient with cabin baggage though. And with silly rules in general.

With BA short haul business class, there is no difference to leg room (unless you are row 1). They are the same seats, just with a table in the middle seat. You do get extra check in bags, lounge access, a cooked meal/bar on board which is good! Worth it if not a massive extra cost or you have points to use.

The cheaper option would be to book economy or a low cost airline and pay extra for the emergency aisle seats (check restrictions re ages for this as children not allowed to sit here - I think the minimum age for easyJet is 16)

Depending on the nature of your holiday, there are places in France especially where train is an option. No issues there.

I found it very obvious which baggage option I had chosen with BA as I clicked to choose checked bag and cabin bag because it’s just not worth not having imo.

I did check the train option and it would cost 3-4 times as much as flying and take nearly 2 days. I did want this but I don’t think it’s achievable even with interail passes

My kids are all correct ages for this but they get booked soooo quickly. It is a good idea though