An uneventful flight with Easyjet on this busy route. There are many things I can recommend Easyjet for, but there are a few dislikes I have about this airline. First the good. The flight was on time departing Belfast and all their aircraft are clean and in good condition. Flight attendants are friendly as well as their check in staff. The flight was booked at short notice and for £160, it wasn’t bad value for money. However there are a few areas I think this airline should change. Both check in’s at Belfast and Malaga didn’t have a designated queue for this flight. In both airports you had to wait in line with the rest of the easyjet passengers travelling to other European cities. If you were running late to the airport you are more likely to miss the check in time deadline due to this. I was also at the Malaga airport 2 hours before departure, but for some reason I was assigned into the last group, D. I find it strange that 110 passengers managed to check in, in the space of 5 minutes before me. That’s if check in opened as it says on the ticket two hours before the flight. The non-allocated seating policy really puts you on edge at the boarding gate. As we were travelling in a group of 4, we were keen to sit together, this stress isn’t put at ease until you see a empty row of seats on the aircraft. To me, allocated seating does not take any longer than non-allocated seating. Besides low cost carries such as Air Berlin, Fly BE and Jet 2 seem to prefer this.

At Malaga the flight was delayed for an hour, but no information appeared on the screens to highlight this, and the specific boarding gate is shown rather late, meaning you have to quickly get thru the shops and passport control in what felt like a very short amount of time. We queued at the gate, then had to queue again for a bus. The reps on the ground forced the entire amount off passengers for this flight on to one bus. It was a very unpleasant ride to the aircraft. When we arrived at the aircraft, passengers that had group A or the more expensive speedy boarding option were one of the last off the bus. Meaning that us, on group D allocation were one of the first onto the aircraft. This really upset a lot of passengers. I am glad that we didn’t pay the extra £40 for the speedy boarding. The captain on board this flight didn’t fill me with confidence. His PA’s were rather staggered and didn’t really make any sense to me. For example, he apologised for the late departure, but then said if you can’t find a seat, just sit in a empty one, and once we are in the air the crew will help you find one. I just take it must have been a really long day for him and his brain wasn’t fully in gear. This might have also explained the rather heavy braking on touch down in Belfast. All in all Easyjet is a nice pleasant experience in the air, but a bit of a nightmare at the airport. I would recommend flying them, but just don’t pay for SP and be ready for the cattle ride in Malaga.