Review of easyJet flight Amsterdam → Liverpool in Economy

Hi all,

Given that most of my funds are currently allocated to renovating my newly-bought house and I had to postpone most of my travel plans for now, I couldn't resist a short trip with my wife to visit her friend in Liverpool. EasyJet is the only airline that offers a direct flight from Amsterdam to Liverpool with a return fare of 250 EUR for 2 persons with a single hold luggage for 15 KG and allocated seats. 

The other option would have been to book a flight to Manchester which offers a lot of flights to Amsterdam, but with prices as steep as 550 euro, I simply chose the most reasonable and logical choice.

After hearing so many stories about long  queues due to shortage of security staff, me and my wife decided to head to the airport a tad earlier than we usually do to avoid any delays and asked the check-in lady whether we were already able to drop off our luggage ahead of time. She told us in a friendly matter that it was ok, checked our luggage and told us to proceed to the H gates, which is the terminal being used by low-cost airlines EasyJet & Ryanair.

The long  queues in most news articles were nowhere to be found (apparently these are only common when you depart in the early mornings as told by staff) and it took no longer than 15 minutes to clear security and border control. 

Clearing border control, you are directly facing one of Jamie's restaurants and a McDonalds with a very long waiting  queue that was almost blocking the entire passage for passengers to proceed to their gates….. The terminal itself was quite lively with only a few shops still being closed.

Given that we've had more than 2.5 hours to kill our time, we decided to grab an early dinner or late lunch at ''Tastes from The Lowlands''. Their menu was very limited to salads and burgers with most options not being available. It also took them more than 20 minutes to serve an order of drinks for some hefty prices.

After buying some gifts for my Wife's friend, we decided to hang out in the G pier, which was very deserted with one single gate being operated as it has seating capabilities which the H pier is lacking quite a lot.

The only aircraft occupying one of the G gates was an Airbus A330 of Wamos Air who was performing a flight to Bonaire & Curacao on behalf of TUI Netherlands, but was delayed by more than four hours.

Our aircraft arrived right on time from Liverpool.

About 10 minutes prior to closure of boarding, we proceeded to our gate which by then was already deserted as most passengers were on board of the aircraft.

The duty of today's flight would be performed by G-EZDL. An Airbus A319 who has solely been in service to EasyJet since June 2008 and is able to carry up to 156 passengers in an ALL Economy configuration. 

Yup, we were one of the last ones to board without any of the waiting lines on board.

Seat 16A would be ours and it gave us a splendid view over the wing, although the window was not 100% correctly alligned to our seat.

The cabin was still in it's older configuration (which is by the way more pleasant) and provided us with sufficient legroom for a flight that took no longer than a hour. Cabin was clean and in a good state.

View of the Cabin.

The literature consisted of a sickbag, safety card and a BoB Menu which you can find below in the gallery. Prices were reasonable, however lots of items were not available due to the length of the flight and partly because many things sold out on the way to Amsterdam as they did not restock their catering in Amsterdam.

Pushback was about 5 minutes past our departure time, but it would take another 15 minutes before we were airborne as we had to taxi to 36L (Polderbaan) which is Amsterdam's most furtherst runway.

The Buy on Board service was engaged as soon as practicable and went quite slow as many passengers opted for a drinks and both flight attendants had to repeat their story every few rows by explaining that they ran out of certain items and what kind of drink they could replace it by. I did not choose to buy something as I wasn't thirsty.

The overhead panel was still in a good condition and has individual airvents, so you could adjust your temperature somewhat by yourself.

The flight attendants just finished their BoB service when the captain checked in with us to inform us that we were already in the descent to Liverpool and gave us a weather update regarding Liverpool. Thanked us for flying with EasyJet. The flight attendants also jumped back in action to clean any trash as soon as practicable as we would be lining up on the final course in about 10 minutes from the Pilot's call.

The disembarkation of the aircraft followed suit and went orderly, but the flight attendants instruction to remain seated until doors were opened were ignored and flights attendants did not enforce this regulation either.

Given that our flight was on stand 10, we still had quite a walk to border control. In Liverpool, the arriving passengers are separated from the departing passengers.

Given that most passengers were UK & European Passports, me and my wife could skip the line and follow All Passports (which was significantly shorter) as my wife holds a passport that was neither of them. It took us a sole 2 minutes to clear border control when a friendly immigration officer asked my wife for the purpose of her visit and where we would be staying. It took another 5 to 10 minutes for our luggage to arrive.

Liverpool was very quiet by this time.

To reach Liverpool, you either could take a bus (2.50 GBP I believe) or grab an English airport taxi which would cost you about 25 GBP and brings you to the city of Liverpool in roughly 20 to 25 minutes. We opted for the latter one as it was more convenient to us.

Bonus : Click here display hide

Albert Dock Pier

Water Str. with the Royal Liverpool Building on your left.

The Titanic Memorial. While the RMS Titanic has never been in Liverpool, they opted to place a memorial in Liverpool as the Titanic was owned by a Liverpool based company and most of it's crew was from Liverpool. There are some interesting stories about the aftermath of this company in relation to their employers.

Some art work on the side of The Wedding House.

Of course there is more to visit, but that's for you to explore. I don't want to spoil it all beforehand!