Stuck in Stansted

It’s 1:12am London time and I will be spending the night here in Stansted airport. All thanks to the great co-operation of the evil allied forces – EasyJet, AirAsia and Stansted airport customs.


I had a good experience with AirAsia, the last time I flew to KL. EasyJet is a big No-No for me and is the culprit for my current predicament. It is by far the worst airline in the world. The staff is rude and it is unreliable. But in order to save RM1200, I decided to fly AirAsia and the only airline connecting Stansted and Copenhagen is Easy Sleezy Jet. I am paying for this lack of good judgement right now.

So obviously, I will never ever fly EasyJet again. Here is why. If you watch the TV programme featuring EasyJet, you will be smiling in empathy already. It is true. EasyJet is not a value for money airline. It is a cheap airline with low standards, poor boarding procedures and you cannot count on it to take you where you want to go on time. If you cannot afford anything else, by all means, go for them. If you’re trying to save some money, it better be a lot of savings. You see, for most airlines, a handbag or a pouch is NOT a hand luggage. But at EasyJet, it is. Worse still is the fact that depending on which EasyJet staff you deal with, this rule may or may not apply.

When we flew from Copenhagen to Stansted the last time, I was allowed to carry my handbag without charge. Naturally, this was the same way we returned to Stansted to fly to Copenhagen. But this time, the handbag was a hand luggage so I was forced to check in the suitcase or the handbag. We paid RM550 or DKK800 for that extra weight. This, my friends, is how EasyJet earns its money. Sleezy.

Tonight, my flight was delayed 45 minutes. But EasyJet alone did not do the job of screwing me. The customs check at Stansted airport at 11:45pm took an hour. There are a few staff members hanging around chatting but not helping. You see old people standing for an hour, crying babies and people on crutches. We all stood there for an hour. I could not get the customs lady to come over and tell her we may miss our flight. After an hour, I took my pre-printed AirAsia boarding pass and went to the gate. There were already four girls at the gate. We were all refused entry. The piece of paper we all held in our hands, printed from the AirAsia website with the title BOARDING PASS, was not a boarding pass, we were told. Plus, all the counters at the airport have closed.

It was 12:55am and the flight was scheduled to leave at 1:25am. All the security check people told us was “It was your responsibility to get here on time”.

Let me explain. The idea was to arrive at 10:45pm and have 1 hour and 45 minutes to go through customs and security. After all, I had the freaking boarding pass in hand. Did AirAsia care to state that this was indeed a fake document?

Now, if I were in Amsterdam or Heathrow airport, I could at least go to a lounge and catch some sleep or take the next flight. But in lousy Stansted airport, there is ONE flight leaving for Kuala Lumpur offered by AirAsia. Malaysia Boleh!

Next time I am going to Malaysia, I will fly KLM or SAS or Swiss Air. The cheap airlines are cheap not because they let you choose what to have and what not to have. It is because they are run by incompetent people.

Now, I will go join the bunch of people who all missed this flight. I swear if there was another flight, I would have taken it and forever avoid the EasyJet, AirAsia and Stansted Airport combination of an experience.

I know what will happen. They will all point fingers at each other. It is really not worth it.