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air travel tips

I have just returned from 3 weeks in England and France. On the whole , it was a great trip. However, there were problems at different airports.

We flew easyjet from London to Montpelier, France. When we got to Gatwick Airport, the bag check procedure was completely automated. There were people to help, but not enough. We had not paid the fee for checking the bags, and had to go to a woman who checked our info and passports completely. And we had to pay to credit card here. My advice for travelers on Easyjet, is pay the baggage charge before going to the airport.

The second part of our problem here, is that the easyjet gate was the furthest away from everything. And, you go though a shopping mall to even get to the gates at all.

Our second bad experience was at Charles de Gaulle terminal 2. This is a huge terminal, there must be 50 different airlines that are here. We were traveling on British Airways, we expected to find them, no problem. But, you must check the board to find where your airline's checkin gate is. As it happened, BA was gate 9, and this was downstairs, not on the main level.

And, it seems that everyone in the world has lots of luggage. The halls were crowded in the airport.

The actual people at BA were very helpful. We have no complaints about them at all.

My advice to people in Paris who are flying home from London, is take the Eurostar the day before, or the morning if you can do it. You will have a more comfortable trip on the Eurostar.

Of course if we had been flying home direct from CDG, we would not have had all these problems.

Posted by
8889 posts

On Easyjet you absolutely must book and pay for your bags at the same time as you book your ticket, and print out your boarding pass before you get to the airport. They make this very clear on their website. Otherwise it costs time and money, as you discovered.
One of the ways they save money is not having check-in desks, it costs a lot more to pay for your bags at the airport.

Using the cheaper less popular gates, and bussing you to the aircraft instead of a walkway are two other ways they save money.
They are honest about this, they are a "no frills" airline, and they admit to using the cheapest options.

At least you didn't turn up unprepared for Ryanair. They do not allow you on board if you haven't pre-printed your boarding pass.

Posted by
4025 posts

Even better advice is to read the home pages of easyJet, and all other European budget carriers, thoroughly in advance, and obey their instructions, which clearly warn against predicaments such as yours. Charles de Gaulle airport has a fat Internet site too, with maps that help guide transfers. Yes it can be complicated, but so is spending a day of your vacation (and some money) transferring to London by ground transport, only to face pretty tangled procedures at Heathrow anyhow.