At airports across Europe, easyJet passengers are doing the ‘Rees-Mogg’

Plane Talk: Britain’s biggest budget airline has a punctuality problem at Gatwick

The waiting game: passengers at Toulouse airport (Simon Calder)

As Thursday evening moved closer to Friday morning, dozens of easyJet passengers at Toulouse airport were “doing a Rees-Mogg”.

While the lounge emptied of other travellers, departing on punctual planes across France and Europe, many easyJet passengers emulated the Leader of the House and lay prone on the wide, comfortable red benches that the airport kindly provides.

On the scale of the extreme disruption that tens of thousands of easyJet passengers to and from Gatwick this summer have suffered, this 80-minute delay on Thursday night barely registered.

Last Sunday, for example, easyJet cancelled 100 flights to and from the Sussex airport after a French air-traffic control failure.

With an average load of around 170 passengers at this time of year, that scale of cancellations represents 17,000 people who either woke up in the wrong place on Monday morning or, like LBC’s Nick Ferrari, took matters into their own hands. The radio presenter drove from the south of France to London.

Yet it is still annoying when a flight such as EZY8340 from Toulouse, arrives on the wrong day. Instead of reaching the gate at Gatwick at 10.45pm on Thursday, the Toulouse-built Airbus reached gate 110 (further from civilisation) five minutes after midnight on Friday.

At any London airport, there is a big difference between arriving at 10.45pm and after midnight. With smooth progress through the airport and a seat on the 11.11pm Gatwick Express to Victoria, for example, the cabin-baggage-only traveller could reach anywhere on the London Underground.

After midnight, public transport thins right down. For some travellers that could mean a taxi – quite possibly costing more than the flight.

Back at gate 110, I was one of the first off the plane – knowing that the last fast train to central London leaves at 12.21am. With 16 minutes to go, I sprinted over the Pier 6 bridge, along interminable corridors to passport control – fortunately queue-free and up to the inter-terminal shuttle to Gatwick’s railway station just in time for the free transfer.

With everything working well, I can now confirm that it takes 16.5 minutes to make the journey.

While I waited for the next train, which in line with a well-known law was late, I counted the number of easyJet flights due to arrive between 8pm and midnight that had actually turned up at the gate on time. Out off 48, only six – from Alicante, Belfast, Hamburg, Jersey, Munich and Rome – were on time.

All the rest were late, by anything from a few minutes to almost three hours for the unfortunate passengers on flight 8636 from Palma.

I got talking to a woman from that flight on the train. “They’re the worst airline in history,” she said, contemplating a £30 cab ride.

“They should be shut down. I’ve got to be at work in seven hours.”

While I empathise with the lack of sleep, I think easyJet is one of the best airlines in history and would personally be appalled were it to close.

But the carrier appears fairly stretched at its biggest base, Gatwick. So in future I will pay the premium (typically £30 or £40 in my experience) for flying on an early evening departure rather than the late (often in both senses) flight.

An easyJet spokesperson kindly investigated and said that 21 of the 48 flights arrived within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. This is the industry standard for “on time” arrivals (though I believe a better measure of punctuality would be to actually be on time).

Of the remaining 27 flights delayed, “many” arrived within 45 minutes of their scheduled arrival time.

“Around half of the delayed flights were affected by air-traffic control [ATC] restrictions and particularly the longest delay of the evening which was affected by the temporary, unscheduled closure of Milan Malpensa airport.

“ATC slots across the network were further affected by the thunderstorms in the Milan area. Three were due to technical issues which of course have to be resolved before we can depart.”

Back at Toulouse, the corresponding Friday flight is showing a one-hour delay. Back to those benches. And recline.