EasyJet: My Airline TV Debut

While I have — less than kindly, mind you — been called an “elitist prick” to describe my obsession with flying in the pointy end and collecting my points and status, today there will be none of that as I pop a cherry that’s been waiting for years: flying EasyJet. The star of the avgeek gold TV series Airline back in the early 2000s.

I’d booked a Bolt the night before to take me to Pula Airport. A bad sleep and early wake-up weren’t great, but the speedy service at the airport was. No waiting for check-in here, even without paying extra for a speedy boarding pass. The airport is super dated but it works for the dozen or so flights a day it gets, mainly from low-cost carriers like Ryanair and EasyJet.

Having already eaten a homemade breakfast in the apartment, I opted for overpriced water and a muffin while waiting for boarding. The terminal wasn’t busy — two Ryanair flights had just finished boarding, clearing out most of the crowd. I was pretty tired, so had a micro nap at one of the tables before waking up and discovering a rooftop terrace overlooking the apron, where I watched my plane arrive between the two military cargo planes already parked.

Boarding was called and we all shuffled into a holding room to let the other Eurowings flight board while we waited. Most of the passengers were queuing at the gate, but I took a more relaxed approach and grabbed a seat — which turned out to be a smart move. Soon the captain of our flight appeared at the gate to address the crowd.

“I’m sorry to say that the aircraft has a very minor fault that we need to fix before we can depart for Amsterdam,” he announced, with extra emphasis on very minor. “Unfortunately EasyJet doesn’t have a contract with any engineers in Pula, so they’re phoning around trying to find one who can come take a look.” At this stage, that meant an indefinite delay. Sigh.

It’s one of those situations where, if I wasn’t extremely tired, I would’ve been more like “bring it on, make it last three hours so I get some compensation cash!” But this morning, I just wanted to get on the plane and sleep. A minute or two later, the captain was back: “EasyJet just rang me back, they’ve found an engineer who’ll be here in 30 minutes. I expect we’ll board maybe 30 minutes after that.” We were all shuffled out of the gate area and back to the terminal, where I found a table and set up for another micro nap.

Despite my avgeek love of the pointy end, finally flying EasyJet was exciting — and it looked like I might even get the full TV show experience with a delay and all. The Dutch crowd flying up to Amsterdam weren’t yelling at staff like their British counterparts on Airline, and the crew handled the delay much better than the TV show ever seemed to.

We boarded pretty much when the captain estimated. Onboard the Airbus A319, I found fabric seats that reminded me of travel years ago, before slimline seats became the norm. For a low-cost carrier, the seats were super comfortable and the legroom sufficient for this 1.5-hour hop to Amsterdam. It helped that the middle seat next to me was empty — more room to stretch out.

We waited another 15 minutes while the paperwork for this “very minor technical fault” was written up and sent off to EasyJet head office for final clearance. Then, plane released and zooming out of Pula, we made up some time flying across Italy, Austria, and Germany en route to Amsterdam.

The scenery over the Alps was amazing. Even in summer, some mountain peaks were still snow-capped — a beautiful white contrast to the green valleys below. I spotted Innsbruck beneath us, a place Thom and I zipped around on scooters during our final Europe trip together in 2019. Ah, good memories. I also saw heaps of other planes in the sky. Those heading the opposite direction flashed past in the blink of an eye, while those on similar paths gradually crept up, flying above or below us. I rarely see other planes this close in Australia — I love how easy it is to plane spot from the air in Europe.

On approach to Schiphol Airport, the captain announced we’d be landing on a centre runway, making for a short taxi to the gate. The view from above was beautifully orderly — so very Dutch. Straight lines of farmland, wind turbines in neat rows, and plenty of solar panels too. This below-sea-level country takes its role in reducing emissions seriously. I wish we had more offshore wind farms like they do.

We landed, made a short taxi, and parked at the last of the EasyJet gates at the very end of the terminal. It was a bit of a hike to baggage claim, but my bag arrived quickly — no lost luggage drama today, thankfully. Happy and a little refreshed from my own EasyJet experience, I made my way to the car rentals to start exploring my ancestral homeland.

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