easyJet is a low fares airline in Europe, who pitch themselves above competitors Ryanair and Wizz Air. This attracts price conscious business travel as well as premium leisure travel, so perhaps it’s no surprise they are opening a London Gatwick lounge from today.
The news is quite unusual, as point to point low fares airlines never ever operate lounges. Even JetBlue has no lounges and they operate a business class product as well.
easyJet’s London Gatwick Lounge
The new lounge is called “The Gateway by easyJet and No1 Lounges”. The airline is operating the facility in conjunction with experienced and well regarded lounge operator No1 Lounges, which is good to see.
As with any airline lounge, there will be self-service food and drinks, as well as table service for hot and cold meals. They have a signature cocktail and promise the signature dishes will change quarterly.
I’ll be interested to see how they police people’s lounge time. I’ve never experienced being thrown out, despite the occasional lounge I’ve visited having a time limit. Will it cause a ruckus, especially with flight delays? Who knows!
Overall Thoughts
easyJet operating a lounge in partnership with No. 1 Lounges makes sense to me. It spreads the risk and should prove popular with a certain segment of their clientele. Hopefully it is a success.
The big orange airline operates throughout Europe, though it inexplicably chooses not to serve the Republic of Ireland. No Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock or Kerry services at all. According to legend, they tried to fly to Ireland and Ryanair ran them out of the country. It is really the only European market they do not serve, which is a bit of a shame.
Have you flown with easyJet before? Will you be using their new lounge at London Gatwick? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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The comparison with Easy and jetBlue is apt. B6 will need to get into the lounge game with the TATL/Mint service if they want to be a real player. With AA’s partnership with Blue, it surprises me somewhat that B6 Mint pax don’t get access to AA clubs at their NE focus airports, at least not yet. Easy is more like jetBlue than Southwest is like Ryanair, so it seems that this is a logical extension of the “hybrid” model. Which admittedly is different US vs. Europe. Easy bases in Europe, at least their major ones seem like prime candidates… Read more »
You would think they would need it for Mint, but they might be actually making a go of not having a lounge and relying on the pricing. It will be curious to see if they manage to make that work, because if they do, a lot of airlines might sit up and take notice. A case of watch this space! I think there are plenty who would go shopping or prefer not to be in a lounge, so none might work. We’ll see!