Paris
 

We are flying from Paris to Venice and there are some drastic flight price differences from carrier to carrier. Has anyone used a carrier from Paris called EasyJet they seem to be the lowest by fares by far ...

yup, easyjet is avery well known budget carrier. They have rock bottom prices but charge for extras like luggage. They also dont have seat assignemnt but you can pay to get on board priority to choose a seat.

Do a search here and you will find lots of discussions wiht lots of opinions on them.

I've used them several times and the flights are fine - just expect to pay for everything extra - food on board, luggage, overagage if you go over hte luggage limit ($$$$$)...

For example: http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...easyjet-ok.cfm

EasyJet is considered quite reliable.

Hi peterh,
We flew Easyjet last year from Edinburgh to Paris. Upon arrival at the Edinburgh airport we were told the flight would be 6 hours late. I don't know if this is usual or unusual for Easyjet but since we had no connecting flight in Paris it wasn't really a concern for us. We had no problems with the flight other than this so I would definitely use them again, but not if I had a tight schedule where a timely arrival was imperative.

Michele

I used easyJet five years ago to fly from London to Prague and Budapest back to London (got a fire sale on a flight into London). I didn't save much by booking my easyJet tickets last minute but if you buy them early, they can be incredibly cheap. The longer you wait, usually the higher the easyJet fares.

easyJet is very no-frills. Even less than Southwest in the US. No free soft drinks! I remember asking for some water, and I got basically "tap" water, not even bottled or canned water!

Yes, they charge more for baggage check and even for checking in! So be prepared for extra charges - and read their guidelines on their website CAREFULLY! They enforce most of their rules more vigorously than the "regular" airlines do - e.g. if your luggage weighs more than 20KG you will be charged an overage fee! So when you see that cheap easyJet fare, best to add a few bucks to it. But if it's still far less than any other carrier, I'd not hesitate to fly them again.

I believe Easyjet flies from Beauvais airport and I would check the transportation prices to that airport. This spring I considered an Easyjet flight from Paris but the shuttle price from CDG to Beauvais was $90 which made it an expensive flight.

easyJet flies from both Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports to Venice Marco Polo. Adrienne may be thinking of Ryanair, which with typical audacity pretends Beauvais airport serves Paris.

One permanent piece of advice for easyJet (and budget airlines in general): Those cheap prices go up, and up and up, as the departure date approaches, so buy on-line as soon as possible.

I agree with Southam. We bought our tickets way out and they were 45 pounds each with hold luggage. We flew into CDG which is very convenient.

Easy jet are good budget airline. New aircraft and well maintained and no less reliable than any mainstream carrier. Infinitely preferable to Ryan Air. I regularly use them for cheap weekend flits around Europe.

Hi P,

EasyJet is a reliable commercial airline.

((I))

Of course on the news this morning there was some sort of outrage about Easyjet cancelling a Paris-Palermo flight which of course left all the passengers seething.

So incidents can happen....

Have used Easyjet more than once..it's business model is similar to Southwest in the US.

My advice: get into the check-in line as early as possible..when they say they are closing check in..THEY MEAN IT.

Their website is VERY upfront about the fact that as the flight date nears, the prices rise so that shouldn't be "news" to people. And I would definitely heed any and all restrictions and advice ON their website, too, including the costs for luggage transport, carry-on weights/sizes, etc.

Aren't all fares higher the closer to flight date on every airline? I've never heard of one where they weren't, they couldn't do planning very well that way if someone could wait until the last minute and pay the same fare.

I flew Easyjet from Paris to Venice last month. No problems, friendly staff, no seat allocation, but I suggest you try to get a seat on the right side of the plane to get a better view of Venice as you land. Take just 1 carry on bag, the size is on their website, I just put all my separate bags into 1 larger tote bag. Weight is not an issue for carry on, just number & size.

Christina, the other airlines seem to have different pricing models than easyJet, which bases its fares in part on how full a particular flight is. The fuller the flight, the higher the remaining seats are sold for. (They used to operate - maybe still? - huge internet cafes with the same pricing model; if you showed up at a busy time when the cafe was full, time to use the computer cost a lot more than if you came late at night when the place was empty - then computer time was extremely cheap.)

Most other airlines have 7-day advance, 14-day advance, 21-day advance fares that are more predictable. It's more important with easyJet than the others to book early in my opinion.

Check the cost (and time) to get to Beauvois Aiport outside of Paris to catch Easyjet. Based on that, we decided to take Air France from Charles DeGaulle to Venice. We got a really good rate (can't remember it) last year and it was fast, reliable and easy. It's time-consuming enough getting from Marco Polo airport into Venice (we took a bus that both the DH and I will swear took 9 hours--just kidding but it was interminable after a long day/night of flying). Sometimes I feel you have to put a price on convenience and cut costs someplace else.

Mel, I think you are mixing up easyJet with RyanAir. easyJet flies to Venice from CDG and Orly.