Easyjet's inflight magazine is surprisingly good. Photo / Creative Commons image by Flickr user Dean Morley
Cameron Ewen flies EZY819 across England aboard a budget carrier.
The plane: A319, little brother of the locally-used A320.
Class: Just the one, low-cost economy.
Price: £38.99.
On time? No. Flight was called on time but the aircraft was remotely boarded by bus and we waited for check-in stragglers at Easyjet's catastrophic bag-drop area. Passengers who paid for early boarding were ripped off as we all took the same bus and boarded at the same time.
My seat: 17A, window on the left right behind the wing, comfy enough on a short flight.
Fellow passengers: A mix of business people on this early flight and commuters from the south.
How full? Half full, but the seating gods didn't smile on me, both seats next to me were allocated.
Entertainment: BYO, but with the UK's new gate-to-gate rules on smartphone and tablet use, this is not an issue, Easyjet's inflight magazine is also surprisingly good.
The service: Bright and cheerful from young, bright-orange clad crew.
Food and drink: Low cost means buy on board; I had a ham-and-cheese toastie and coffee for £6.90 ($14).
The toilets: Clean on this first flight of the day.
Luggage: You've seen the show Airline, so be warned, if you do not purchase baggage allowance online before you get to the airport you will be stung at the gate.
Demure Denise, the gate agent, did not hesitate to charge the lady in front of me at the boarding queue £80 ($163) for her oversize carry-on bag.
The airport experience: Absolutely awful at Easyjet's bag drop. The two queues were huge and the desks manned by only two agents. The area was close to mutiny - when another agent finally arrived the entire check-in zone clapped! 0.1 out of 10 for that.
Gatwick itself is your typical UK shopping centre with planes while Newcastle airport is tiny and functional, a mere five-minute walk from aircraft to Metro stop.
Would I fly this again? Yes, but only if I couldn't find a comparable fare on ba.com.
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