Easyjet or BA with an 8-month-old

[linsayevie]

Has anyone had good, bad or indifferent experience flying with Easyjet or BA and a small infant? we're off to Italy in May, and Easyjet is about £100 cheaper than BA, but not sure if the little extras like pre-boarding make it worth going BA...

Lins & Evie

Easy jet preboarded families when we flew back from spain in October.

so did bmibaby when we flew with 10m old twins, so would go with easyjet...

Easyjet pre-boards families with young children.

Oops - posted before I mean to...

... at least it did yesterday when I was flying down to and back to Luton/Glasgow.

I've done BA with a 4 month old and they were good, tho they didn't preboard (we had allocated seats). We recently flew with Ryanair (who've added some more Spanish routes) and was v pleasantly surprised - no luggage excess, preboarding and v friendly staff.

I note for easyjet, this is the only airline who have ever lost my luggage - so label EVERYTHING and make sure you have a bit of clothing for all in each suitcase - for some reason travellingwithkids.com recommend putting all your baby's stuff in one suitcase - if this gets lost...

That's great. Do you know if they do food warming on easyjet too? We havent started weaning yet, so dont know if its really essential, but since we're flying from Edinburgh via London, we're going to need to feed on the go at some point in the journey!

I once flew with BA back up to Glasgow from London and they forgot to put any of the luggage on to the flight! They didn't even realise until we complained that nothing had come off! The only pieces of luggage that had arrived had been the international ones that had connected from another flight!

We also had a piece of luggage lost in Paris en route to South Africa - it caught up with us 3 days later. Fortunately we had split stuff between the two bags!

Linsayevie - I don't think they have galleys per se, but they do sell hot drinks, so at a pinch, you might be able to get hold of a cup of hot water to warm the stuff.

WEhy not make sure to have something that is suitable cold if he/she does want to feed - eg a container of avocad/banana/yoghurt mush (sounds horrific but is actually quite tasty - from Annabel Karmel).

I've been flying with easyjet especially since having dd1 and dd2, as I always end up with an extra seat for dd!! (Noone would choose to sit next to a 10 month old baby if there is another free seat on the plane!!!!). Never had any problems with them and were always cheaper than BA.

I actually did fly BA once with dd1 and although the flight wasn't full they didn't leave the seat next to me free (even though I asked v politely) so had dd strapped on me for 4 hours which she wasn't very happy about....

Oh, and although dd has her milk room temp, I seem to remember that they have heated it up once for me...

You should be able to preboard on the way out of UK on Easyjet, less consistent on flights into UK ime. No idea about food warming but agree a cup of hot water should do the trick. (We rarely heated food for ds anyway, not even milk).Take a couple of plainish jars in case of delay, and to tied you over on arrival, and some cereal you could make up with hot water. You could always ask for some hot water from a cafe in Departures and just adapt his meal time for convenience , by then he could probably cope with mashed banana, yoghurt, softish bread etc as snacks if need be.

We, and our visitors , have used Easyjet a lot over the past few years and have had very few complaints. Flew BA in the summer and weren't that impressed for the extra.

we used easyjat to fly to alicante when ds was 6mths..they had a pre board of people with children and disabled first..we had no problems at all with the flights and i would use them again

Why do all the parents with kids preboard anyway? I would sooenr entertain my DS in a mahoosive airport for as long as possible than get on th plane and get cabin fever within 10 seconds!

Westcountrylass, I've never understood it on flights with preallocated seats either. ime families (including us!) take longer to get sorted out so there are individuals queuing back down the aisle. I feel under great pressure to get sorted out quickly as a result.

However on Easyjet and low cost ones there aren't preallocated seats so it is easier to get seats together if they can preboard (also you can tactically take up one extra seat in the hope that the flight is not full and you get extra space!).

We flew with Easyjet last autumn and I was a bit apprehensive but they were great both ways. Going in and out of the UK, we got to board first and the staff were really friendly. We actually paid for seats for DS 1 and 2 as they were so cheap and we got to use their luggage allowance .

We took loads of snacks and filled a child's rucksack with bits and bobs - it worked a treat. Have a lovely holiday.

Flown easijet and NOT been preboarded, but you could send one of you ahead in the rugby scrum to nab some decent seats whilst the other brings up the rear as it were....did get asked about bottle warming and all that.....

Flown with easyjet loads of times & always been pre boarded & never had any problems, unlike ba who weren't at all helpful. I'd go easy jet over ba any day.

I have always found Easyjet very good - especially when travelling with baby. They do also have nappy changing facilities which is not the case on all airlines. We are always preboarded

We fly Easyjet when we travel and have been happy with them. They've offered to heat up a bottle too (although that was a couple of years ago now when ds1 was small).

Actually no... scratch that... Dh has just pointed out that I don't know my airplane livery. We fly MyTravelLite.... oops sorry.

No problems with easyjet, except for the time i flew on my own with dd out of Stansted.

Don't think it's worth £100 extra for BA, no. (although it's probably £50 more now if you haven't booked yet - stupid fare system)

that's a shame, SenoraPostrophe . I flew on my own with my 3 (must've been mental 4months, 3 & 4)) and they were really helpful, unlike ba who were the opposite the time I flew alone + kids

I've never flown on any airline with a baby so my experience is somewhat limited at the moment I will say though that one possible advantage of BA over EasyJet is being able to check in online and thus minimise the amount of time in the airport.

That's probably less relevant with a baby than without, since you're v likely to get preboarded on EasyJet so no real need to turn up 2 hours before the flight, but worth a thought. My intention when I do fly with the bean is to go from Norwich as it's fantastically quiet, and you can turn up with absolutely minimal time if you are already checked in online. (Plus if you ask nicely the security people will post your letters for you if you've forgotten there's no postbox in departures!)

BA are generally less likely to be delayed than EasyJet, which also might be a factor to consider.

Btw, you say you are flying from Edinburgh "via" London, I assume you realise that EasyJet don't do connecting flights, so if you are travelling onwards you will need to pick up the bags in Stansted/Luton and then check in again? Plus leave a fairly good chunk of time between flights as you're effectively on two separate trips.

A friend got caught out flying from Edinburgh on EasyJet by the fact they only broadcast the announcements in half the airport - the half nearest the domestic gates, admittedly, but the other end, where the international flights go from, is much quieter and less smoky so she was there with her 18-month-old during a rather lengthy delay. She missed the announcement that the flight had moved forward by about 10 mins and turned up at the gate to find out the flight had closed and all her waiting had been in vain. Just a little one to watch out for!

we regularly have guest flying to us in CH and the easy jet passengers are always either on time or early. The BA brigade have have had all lengths of delays plus one case going missing. I think as Easy Jet are a lot more rutheless about late check ins & missing slots & fines etc, they do their utmost to take off on time, and in our experience anyway, are more punctual than ba. maybe we've just been lucky though, but this has been over a period of 4 years, consistently seen better arrival times with EJ over BA, so don't think it's a fluke

I fly long distance once or twice a month for work, with DS since he was 6 months old and would honestly say ANYTHING OTHER THAN BA. I have had to make 5 formal compalints so far and will never use them again. IME Easyjet are fine for short flights and cabin crew far more helpful than BA. My faves are Singapore, Thai, and I find BMI much much better than BA for short flights. Sorry to rant on but BA have been intolerable.