My wife and I flew on one of easyJet's new Airbus A 319s for the first time in the week commencing 4 July 2004. We have previously travelled on some of their Boeing 737s.

We flew on the new Bristol to Berlin Schoenefeld route and returned the same way a few days later. The aircraft and crews on this route are Berlin-based and their enthusiasm reminded me of the early days of Go Fly. On each flight the lead cabin crew member happened to be British (or at least had British accents: a Scottish sounding woman on the way out and a Northern Irish sounding man on the return). They remaining cabin crew appeared to be German and they made the announcements in German to complement the English language announcements of the senior cabin crew members.

Both captains appeared to have German accents when addressing the passengers in English - naturally they also spoke in German for the benefit of German-speaking passengers. The outbound captain did not tell us much, but on the return we were kept informed of the progress of the flight at intervals along the route.

The mid afternoon flight from Bristol took only ninety minutes in the air to reach its destination and landed over half an hour before the advertised arrival time. The aircraft was about 3/4s full and was very comfortable and clean, as one would expect of such a new machine. We had an excellent view of Berlin on the extended approach.

The return left Berlin at lunchtime and was over twenty minutes late leaving. Again a clean and comfortable aircraft which was slightly more heavily loaded than the outbound. The views of central Berlin, the Wannsee/Grunwald areas and Potsdam were incredible as we climbed out of Schoenefeld. Our flight time was again ninety minutes and we landed back at Bristol about fifteen minutes early which suggests to me that the advertised overall timings are very generous.

All this for £41 return, including taxes and charges - amazing value.