EasyJet gets airborne

Gatwick Airport celebrated last Monday (15 June) with the re-opening of its North Terminal and the return of easyJet into the air.

The flight was to Glasgow with just 51 passengers on board and social distancing no problem.#####

The Sun’s Travel Editor Lisa Minot was on board and captured the emotion of Captain David Morgan’s voice in her report “We’re back in the air!” he exclaimed to cheers and applause from passengers. 

Usually the cheers are for a safe landing after a tricky approach.  Not this time.  Everyone wanted to reach for the clouds.

Lisa told her tale “At 5am, the UK’s second largest airport is a ghost town. Riding the moving escalator to departures, there is not a single other person in sight.

What is clear is the need to wear a mask – signs are everywhere asking you to cover up.

With my boarding pass already on my phone, there was no need to stop by the single easyJet groundcrew working from behind a perspex screen.

Scanning my boarding pass to enter security, staff in masks and gloves firmly order you to add your own belongings to the trays while maintaining a very social distance.

With everyone wearing masks it does mean voices are raised as you are encouraged to take out laptops, remove high heels and push your own trays onto the conveyor belt to send them through the x-ray machine.

But with more staff than passengers the whole process takes less than 30 seconds and I’m through into the departure lounge.

And that’s the next surprise. No snaking through endless aisles of duty free perfume and booze.

A short cut route normally reserved for passengers requiring special assistance means you pop out instantly next to the one and only shop open in the North Terminal.

Here, the shelves of Boots are surprisingly well stocked with sandwiches, wraps and sushi – I grab a sarnie and a drink having been warned there will be nothing on sale on the flight. Again, I am chatting to the Boots staff through a Perspex panel – and paying with my phone to avoid using cash.

It’s eerily quiet.  Every other shop in the departure hall remains shuttered and in darkness. But there are additions to the space – banks of hand sanitising stations and endless signs reminding you to stay socially-distanced.

When the flight is called, you scan your boarding pass via a little window cut in the plastic guards around the gate staff.

Even with just a few passengers, we’re told to make use of both the front and rear doors to avoid queues forming on the plane.

The crew rattle through the standard safety briefing, but of course when describing how to use the oxygen masks, there’s an extra reminder to remove your face mask before putting it on.

He explains the plane’s specialist system filters out 99.97% of viruses and bacteria with the air pushing downwards to vents in the floor, replacing the air in the cabin every three or four minutes and minimising the risk of particles passing among passengers.

Our cabin crew welcome us onboard but the usual patter about onboard drinks, snacks and duty free is now replaced with an appeal NOT to clean our own tray tables but to request the special wipes carried on each plane that contain the same chemical as the daily disinfection process.

The flight flies by, with many getting up from their allocated seats and moving to empty rows.

With no trolley service, I dig out my sarnie and take scrumptious bites moving my mask up and down for each one.

Helped by a frisky tail wind and of course virtually no other air traffic, our flight lands 40min early in Glasgow.

As I’m heading back to London, we disembark and head straight to the departure gate where 20 or so paying passengers are waiting to take the flight to the capital.

It may be a small start, with only a handful of flights on a tiny number of routes but Britain is back flying again – and I for one felt safe, secure and would happily do it all over again.

Hopefully somewhere hot and sunny next time!”

Our Thanks to The Sun.

www.easyjet.com

www.thesun.co.uk

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum