EASYJET OR RYANAIR?

With family abroad, I travel more often than average.

The last few times I have gone to London, or gone elsewhere via London, I have chosen to fly Easyjet rather than Ryanair for that leg of the journey, usually then linking up to a Ryanair flight to the continent.

There are several things I prefer about Easyjet in comparison with Ryanair:

• Easyjet leaves from nearby Glasgow, not distant Prestwick
• Easyjet's ticket price is the ticket price - they don't make you add on £8 a bag , £5 per carseat, and all that cryptic nonsense Ryanair likes to add on to annoy you
• Easyjet doesn't make you tell them in advance (months in advance) how many bags you want to bring on board
• Easyjet doesn't make you weigh or measure the volume of your hand luggage - if it fits, it fits - they don't care
• with Easyjet you can have priority boarding just because you have an infant without having to pay extra, so there is no half hour queue to get on the plane and no worry you can't get a seat beside your 2 year old child
• Easyjet's staff tend to be courteous native English speakers - older than your average Ryanair Eastern European teenager who has learned the announcements off by heart but who looks blank when you put an unexpected question. Their staff aren't on a power trip and they don't give you attitude
• Ryanair plays you an ear-shatteringly annoying fanfare every time a flight lands at destination on time
• Easyjet uses bright shiny new Airbuses which I personally prefer to Boeing 737s

However, it is with regret that I have resolved in future only to fly Ryanair down to London. Strange decision, you might think, but no. The one advantage Ryanair has over Easyjet on the London route in particular, but on all routes as far as I can see after using them literally hundreds of times is punctuality. I would say 95% of the Ryanair flights I have taken over the years have been on time. Recently none of the Easyjet ones have. We were delayed several hours to and from Denmark costing us £350 in lost flights in the summer. Some work colleagues flew Easyjet to Glasgow last week, again arriving and departing 2-3 hours late. With point to point airlines you can unfortunately put up with any crap except delay because delay means missing connecting flights.