Review of easyJet flight from Barcelona to Milan in Economy

Background

This series covers a recent TATL trip. I needed to reposition from Barcelona to Milan, which only had 3 direct options on the day of travel during the evening window:

FR would have been the best option logistically since BGY is closer to where I needed to be, but I settled on an earlier flight to MXP to try and get into my hotel earlier. I unwisely went with the U2 option at 19:00 since I took VY in the previous sector and wanted to try a different carrier, but what I overlooked at the time is that U2 operates in MXP T2 meaning that I would need to take a bus from T2 to T1 to collect my rental car.

U2 operates several flights per day between BCN and MXP, with wide-ranging base fares. My day/time constraints would mean that I will take the most expensive option with a base fare of 125 EUR, which is not surprising since it would be a bank holiday in Spain the next day.

Unlike with VY, I found the 2 packages proposed by U2 to be poor since they are clearly up-selling a bunch of items for any one that wants a large cabin bag. I was tempted to just do the Essentials and check-in my bag, but eventually paid out the extra money for the Standard Plus option bringing the total price of this short 1h flight to >200 EUR.

Routing

This report covers the 1.5h hop from Barcelona-El Prat to Milan-Malpensa.

Pre-flight

My driver dropped me off at BCN T2C at 17:30 since I had checked-in online the night before and had no bags to check.

The U2 check-in/bag drop area didn't have a soul in sight.

The FIDS at BCN T2.

Up the stairs to the security check point.

Again, not a soul in sight and I am airside within 5 minutes of arriving at the airport.

Despite the lack of people landside, there are an abundance of people inside, maybe entering via T2A or T2B.

I used the Sala VIP Canudas with PriorityPass, which I won't report since it was crowded and have already documented it in my last visit to BCN T2 back in 2022 (here). I didn't see any change in the lounge since my last visit that is worth noting. The only issue is that as soon as I got to the lounge, my flight had been marked as delayed despite our plane being on-time arriving into GVA. What I didn't know was that France ATC was on strike (no suprise there…) so our flight would be delayed doing the return GVA-BCN sector since it would need to be re-routed to circumvent French air space.

Part of me was hoping the flight would get pushed into EU 261 territory, but alas at 20:35 we were signaled to go to the gate with only a 2h delay as the plane had finally arrived from GVA.

Boarding

Boarding was a complete mess as both boarding groups were intermixed and I think there was no priority given to people with Speedy Boarding as we were all jammed into the jet bridge to wait for ~10 minutes for the plane to be prepped for boarding.

Fuselage shot.

Eventually making my way to the front door at 20:52 where I was greeted in Spanish and tried my best salmon interpretation to maneuver my way to the back of the plane amongst the on-going fight for overhead bin space in the forward section.

The back of the plane was still empty, so a chance to examine the hard product on this plane, OE-LQA, a 2009-built A319 in Y156 configuration named Adam Stoaling after the former EasyJet pilot.

My seat in the back, despite supposedly being eligible for an "Up Front" seat with my package that I couldn't select for some reason. This plane will have the older cabin. 

These old Weber AI-1000 seats were surprisingly not very comfortable despite how padded they look.

Thanks to the tight seat pitch, there is no problem reaching the tray table or reading the seat back advertisements.

The pitch is very bad at ~28" and will make for a very uncomfortable flight for anyone >180cm.

The seat back contents, which I was tempted to take out and throw under the seat to give myself some knee room.

The old slab armrests that have no features. The plane obviously has no recline or charging options.

Despite the age of this plane, the PSU is in good working order, clean, and contains air vents.

The view from my seat.

Flight

The cabin crew kept yelling at people to hurry up, they must have been under pressure to keep the delay <3h. We finally pushed back at 21:08 and the safety demonstration was performed.

We had the long ~15 minute taxi around runway 06L/24R and then around T1 to get to runway 24L for departure. Didn't know Amazon Air operated in Europe, but we skipped this B737-800BCF in queue to take off.

We had a rolling take off at 21:34, ~2.5h late and did our u-turn to start the trek east to Italy with the glow of Barcelona in the distance.

I quickly fell asleep after take off so cannot comment on the runs up the aisle by the crew, but awoke as we reached the Côte d'Azur. Possibly Saint-Raphaël since a couple of minutes later looked like Nice below clouds.

After another nap, we were into our final descent into MXP passing Novara.

We landed on runway 35R at 22:51, ~2h late.

I guess the advantage of MXP T2 is that it is really close to the runway for arrivals and looping around the terminal we pulled into a remote stand just minutes later at 22:56.

Sitting in the back paid off as the remote stand meant we could use the rear door. The stairs were quickly pulled up.

After the warm weather in Barcelona, Milan was very cold.

Fuselage shot.

Despite the poor experience onboard, still enjoyable getting some tarmac views walking back to the terminal.

The massive Exit sign makes it very easy to figure out how to get out of the baggage claim^^

To get to the shuttle bus, one must go outside in the direction of the trains.

Near the train station there is signage denoting the bus stop for the terminal transfer service which operates every 15 minutes.

I luckily reached the rental car center at 23:40, just before they closed at 24:00 and had no traffic on my hour drive outside of the city. I'll leave off this series here as I start my short stay in Lombardy, thanks for stopping by!

Flight Information

easyJet, U27155
Equipment: Airbus A319 [OE-LQA “Adam Stoaling”, delivered February 2009]
Departure: 19:00 (ATD: 21:34)
Arrival: 20:45 (ATA: 22:51)
Flight time: 1:17