Review of easyJet flight Birmingham → Amsterdam in Economy

After finishing my two weeks shift with my employer, they booked me on a flight with EasyJet from Birmingham back home to Amsterdam. 

On the day of travel with about three hours to departure, I decided to use the shuttle bus of the Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport NEC hotel which brings you to Birmingham Airport's train station as the local authorities do not allow you to be dropped off in front of the terminal unless you are willing to pay a parking fee.

From the train station of Birmingham Airport, you are able to grab a short monorail ride to the terminal.

With about 2.5 hours to check-in, I decided to grab myself a coffee with Costa Coffee till the check-in counter went online to drop off my bag.

About two hours prior to check in, the tv panels told us that EasyJet's check-in counter was open and you would be able to find it in the B section of the terminal…..

 After looking around for approximately 10 minutes or so and unable to find the check-in counter, I asked one of the staff members regarding EasyJet's check-in and he told me to look for it in the D part of the terminal as Birmingham likes to shuffle them around…… It's here where I found them immediately…. Couldn't you even bother to update the information panels Birmingham?

Security was a breeze and took less than five minutes to clear. The good part of Birmingham Aiport is that you'll not need to pass border control as passenger information is handed out to border control for those who left the country. After security, you will find yourself in a common scene of most airports in which they force you to pass through duty free to get to your gate.

The terminal itself was completely overcrowded with almost no seats available and you literally had to be lucky to grab a seat in one of their few eateries. I managed to find myself a table with Factory Bar & Kitchen to grab myself a beer and some food for lunch. 

I decided to grab another small beer prior to proceeding to my gate when I noticed that my flight was delayed by an hour. I'm also not a massive fan of airports reporting only 30 minutes prior to departure what gate is going to be used for your flight as it has the tendencies to overcrowd the main area like it is the case for Birmingham. It also has limited lightning which makes the appearance to be rather dark if lightning is not turned on.

About 30 minutes prior to our renewed departure time, it was announced that Gate 48 would be used for our flight to Amsterdam.

Despite the crowded terminal, not much activitiy was to be seen on the tarmac on this end of the pier. The only other aircraft on stand was this Boeing 737-800 of Jet2 who would depart to a Mediterranean destination.

Gate 48 was already engaged in a slow check-in process without the aircraft actually being there yet. Past the check-in you were kind of forced to spend your remaining minutes in an enclosed seating area which tends to become overcrowded once again with insufficient seating.

By the time I was done with my boarding process, the aircraft already arrived with an Airbus A321 of Turkish Airlines pulling into stand.

OE-LQA would be our bird to bring us across the pond to Amsterdam. A 14.3 year old Airbus A319 of EasyJet Europe who has been delivered in EasyJet in February 2009 as G-EZFB before being moved to it's subsidiary EasyJet Europe in March 2018 to function as OE-LQA.

Upon enterring the cabin, we were greeted by the cabin manager which gave me an impression to be a ''big momma'' to the other flight attendants as most of the flight attendants seemed to be rookies (judged based on their behaviour). 
 
Seat 4F was the seat for my flight which gave me a pretty view over the engine & wing, though the seat wasn't really properly alligned to the window.

It also has the older cabin configuration of EasyJet, which for me is much better compared to the newest version, though the aircraft was ina great state with little to no signs of wear. It was also equipped with individual air vents.

Leegroom to be frank wasn't the worst up front for a low cost carrier either… I would say that it was even generous given that I didn't pay for additional legroom.

Flight crew checked in with us apologizing for the delayed departure, but this was due to a mechanical failure upon arrival in Amsterdam from it's previous flight which had to be fixed and signed off by one of their mechanics before it was able to continue it's journey to Birmingham.

Upon completing boarding, the flight was quickly pushed back for it's departure to Amsterdam and to my surprise the flight crew opted for a departure out of taxiway C1, which is not common to be used for the airliners out of my experience as 99% of the airlines would opt for an intersection departure out of E1 or woudl take full length from taxiway S1. 

With an early easterly turn we were directly in the correct direction to Amsterdam.

Literature of the seat pocket of today's flight consisted of a sickbag, Buy on Board Magazine & the mandatory safety card of the aircraft.

Reaching a safe altitude for flight attendants, they jumped into action to serve as many passengers as possible given the short duration of the flight and we only remained in cruise for a whole 15 minutes at flightlevel 310 as briefed by the captain. After those long 15 minutes of cruise, we were already into a rapid descent towards Amsterdam.

For a while we flew quite low over the sea before the final course of runway 06.

The landing was very smooth with a long roll towards the end of the runway.

After a short ride to our gate, the aircraft was quickly prepared for a quick disembarkation to minimize the delay which was already reduced to a mere 30 minutes (instead of 70 min).

A last view of the aircraft that brought us over.

Border control for non-eu members was quite busy, though for those with a EU passport it was a mere breeze and took no more than two minutes or so to clear. It took about another 10 minutes for our luggage to arrive before being on my way home to call it for the day.

Thanks for stopping by.