a last min flight
Hello everyone,
Welcome to this report of this flight from London to Geneva.
Very sadly, some of our close family member suddenly passed away and so I wanted to fly back home asap. As a young professional, I couldn't afford some last minutes fares to Lyon with U2, let alone BA and AF, after looking at Grenoble that was expensive too (ski season) I chose Geneva; where I took a train from after.
This person was another grandmother to us, and even though it has been some years; her memoru is still very much alive.
Sad note aside, the only benefit of this trip is that I discover that Geneva was an acceptable alternative to LYS.

This was still the time where easyjet was still operating on the "first arrived first served" basis, and so no seats where assigned to you not even at check in, rather the battle for seats onboard still ongoing.
Nonetheless here is a seat map of the A320s.

at london - gatwick airport
We arrived at London Gatwick airport by public transport (Tube and train; namely the Southeastern trains).
At the time both terminals were stills used randomly by airlines, whereas now North Terminal is by Low cost and South terminal by legacy carriers.
Arriving at south terminal in gatwick…

and at north terminal once passed the security; the massive duty free area.

and above the duty free area, there is the famous pubs and food court.

and walking down again towards the left end of the duty free area where the long corridor of gates are. Isn't it funny to see this large crowd of people not wearing masks? XD

onboard the a320
Our bird on that day was an A320.
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: G-EZTA
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 2 years at this time, nowadays 11 years old
Layout: Y186
The AvGEEK Bit
The strange thing is that gatwick has been built with 2 runways however just one is in use, the second shorter one is used as taxiway.
The crew was professional that day. The safety procedures were explained in the old fashion way by the crew but covered by the same male voice recorded message.
We were taxiing for a short time up until the end of the runway, however we had to wait to take off as we were 4th in the queue.

I was seating on the left side of the plane so no views on EGKK unfortunately.

After take off and the seat belt switched off passed 10,000 feet, the crew quickly started their on board service

The service onboard was not that cheap, but I guess easyjet is known for not offering the most value for money BoB.

On the pocket you could find the easyjet magasine, with a lot of adds and a few articles. I rushed to the end of the magasine to read through the airline and destination info.

Flying to Geneva takes almost exactly the same time as LYS, even the approach and taxi time is quite similar.
We started the approach with the beautiful view on the alps - but with my old phones I am sorry.


Flaps full over the Leman lake

Spoilers armed

at geneva - international airport
Hello Geneva!

and the building terminal

and arriving at our parking stand with this old Iberia plane.

Hey Chris, thanks for sharing this retro-report on EZY, which coincidentally was the year of my last flight on EasyJet. I remember how cramped it felt at the time and was just unimpressed in general. 180-seat A320s were super dense at the time, but have since become the norm, sadly, even for legacy carriers, made possible in part by better designed slimline seats (which EZY did not have at the time). Heck, now with "Cabin Flex" smaller lavs and galleys on A320neos, there are up to 186-188 seats on some newer deliveries, ouch.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Kevin,
thanks for stopping by! Well the last U2 time for me was probably in 2018 if that - although never flew with the equivalent you guys have: Southwest.
Yes it is become rare to even see 170 seats now...
Thanks again!
Chris