Scrunched up in a plastic Ryanair seat 10 yards away from your partner, with your children scattered far around the plane, you tend to remember why you usually pay a little extra for easyJet.
Yet even the orange airline is struggling to make progress amid tough competition to transport a public increasingly looking to save every penny and cent.
It’s not just the European economy, Brexit and pricier fuel that’s hurting. Bad weather and striking French air traffic controllers have cost a fortune as thousands of punters every month get stranded and need a free hotel for the night.
Little wonder, then, that easyJet today joined Lufthansa, British Airways’ owner IAG and Thomas Cook in issuing downbeat trading news. But the £275 million loss for the winter half of the year (always a loss-making time) could be far worse.
Newish chief Johan Lundgren reckons that, despite flying to major city airports rather than cheapo ones 100 miles away, he’s getting costs down to limit the impact of delays.
The changes don’t sound much individually, but, like Sir Dave Brailsford’s British Cycling team, hundreds of marginal gains make a big difference.
Tweaks include getting crews to arrive to work 10 minutes earlier; putting the commercial and engineering teams in a room together to design more realistic schedules rather than leave it just to the money men; better use of data processing to predict hold-ups.
The resulting promise of lower costs boosted the share price today. Nobody is predicting the external market is going to get easier at easyJet anytime soon. But such self-help will set it up well for when times, eventually, improve.
