At the end of a 10 night stay in the Canary Islands we made our way to Arrecife to check in for our 12:20 flight back to Gatwick. As we were getting a lift to the airport from relatives we had to be dropped off early, meaning we were stood in line for an hour waiting for the desk to open. Once both desks opened at 10:20 we were checked in and made our way through to the lounge via security. Being a Sunday it was not a busy day, Arrecife can be manic on a Thursday - the main day so luckily getting last minute shopping or even a seat was easy. I saw our aircraft land. Suprisingly it was an actual easyJet Airbus A319! Flights to the Canary Islands on easyJet from the UK are all routes inherited from thier take over of GB Airways and as such are normally operated by the ex GB Airbus A320's or A321's. So I was quite suprised to see a smaller and much less capable A319 aircraft performing the route today. That aside, we formed the normal easyJet crushed queue and boarded our aircraft, G-EZAK very quickly. Once seated we were all set for departure about 15 minutes early when the captan made his first PA that all was not panning out as well as we had thought. He explained that this A319 aircraft should not normally perform the route and with a full flight with bags and the required fuel onboard for the trip, we were now 4 tonnes over the legal maximum take off weight. We could offload the bags and some passngers or de-fuel, the latter he decided was the best option but we would all have to get off. Natually a lot of passngers started having fits but I fully undertood the reasons and off we got.

After about an hour we were allowed to board again, so everyone crushed around the gate again in order to scramble to get seats together again which was admittedly a bit tiresome, however once back on we got the same seats we had left an hour earlier, then once everyone was seted we were told the plan to fly up to Faro in Portugal and then take on more fuel before continuing on to Gatwick. Mobile phones all around buzzing while passengers vented to relatives waiting back in the UK. To be fair to the Cabin Crew and flight deck crew they were very apoloetic and I felt for them in the situation as by now they were heading into a very long 13hrs + duty, but some people only see in tunnel vision. We took off at 13:50 to Faro and the flight time was 1hr 40 minutes, the crew perfomed a full service, never once looking like they didn't want to be there or complaining. Everyone managed to get served before we landed in Faro and a few passengers even commented how nice the Algarve looked, so basically you got a free taster from my point of view.

It took only 20 minutes to re-fuel but we then had a slot restriction meaning we had to wait a further 30 minutes before we could take off again. In the air we were offered tax free shopping and more drinks and snacks. The cost of which is comnparable to a lot of other airlines or UK airports. I would say the easyJet A319 is not an especially comfortable aircraft for such a route. The Boeing 737-700's easyJet fly have a much better seat and a little more legroom. It is not an aircraft I feel should be doing this sort of route and after the catalogue of errors we suffered they should definitley think about using them on the Canary routes.

The Captain on this aircraft could not apologise enough on behalf the company but for some that was just not enough. Even when we landed at 18:45(2hrs 15 minutes late) and the airbridge could not attach to the aircraft some just blamed the pilot and told him to stop apologising.

Anyway in summary, the flightdeck, cabincrew and service offered were fantastic. The A319 is not a very comfortable aircraft for the route and should perhaps stay on the shorter european routes. easyJet should maybe have checked the logistics of this operation before launching the flight which shows a bit of ineptitude but I can not really fault the cost or the actual crew. My relatives who flew back into Luton with Monarch aboard the larger Airbus A320 that evening also had to divert into Faro due to the high head- winds so it wasnt just a glicth with easyJet, but a genuine problem for other carriers too.