I had the opportunity (or requirement) to do a trip on easyJet, as the other routes I normally took were either overpriced or something else was causing an issue. I used to work for a German company, and I had to commute over there on a fairly regular basis. My normal route was to Dusseldorf with British Airways and then it was a 2-hour drive in a rented car. I could fly to Dortmund and the drive was significantly shorter, the problem was the only way to get to Dortmund was from Luton on easyJet. Luton was significantly harder for me to get to, which counteracted the benefit of the shorter drive the other end. On this occasion I had to take the Luton route, so I decided to try and make it as “business class” as possible.
As this was quite a few years ago and the route I took no longer exists. But I wanted to give you a modern-day equivalent, so I priced up a random trip from London to Hamburg on both British Airways and easyJet to see what the costs look like. I’ll explain about the trip first, you can see the cost comparison further down.
How to make easyJet feel premium
First of all, as easyJet is a budget airline, it does not have business class. But there are ways that you can improve your day to make it feel like a business class experience. Most of these can be booked when you book your ticket, although many the extras could also be bought separately.
At the time I was living in Twickenham, which was a fairly easy bus ride away from Heathrow Airport. To get to Luton I had to either drive, which meant paying for parking or it would be a train to London, a tube across London and then the train back out again to Luton, which also took quite a bit of time. I think on this occasion I drove, and I booked into the long stay car park, as it was the cheapest. It’s then a short bus trip up to the airport terminal.
Most of the optional extras I’m about to talk about can be booked alongside your ticket through EasyJet, but you can also book them directly to the airport if you want to.
How do you make a budget flight less budget?
For me the key things for making flying more enjoyable or avoiding queueing and not having to wait anywhere unpleasant, like with drunken holiday makers off to Tenerife. So that means fast track security, lounge access and boarding early. All of which can be purchased for a fee. On this particular trip, I was travelling hand luggage only, so I had no need to check in, I went straight to security, where I’d purchased fast security. Turns out a lot of people didn’t seem to pay for this, so it was very quick as there was nobody else there. Next is the lounge.
Paid for lounges
There are many paid for lounges in airports all over the world with plenty of options for membership schemes and credit cards with offers to allow your access to those lounges. Probably the most well-known is the priority pass lounge system. They have a membership scheme where you can pay for different levels depending on how many trips to a lounge you need throughout the year. There are also other ways of getting priority passes, for example I have a gold American Express card that comes with 4 free priority passes a year, which are useful when I need to get into a lounge in an airport either that doesn’t have airline lounges or I’m flying with an airline where I don’t have status. Many airlines offer paid access to their own lounges to get in those few extra customers and a bit of cash. Some airports don’t have airline lounges at all, only private ones, with paid access, they then do deals with airlines for access. For example, Stansted Airport has a single paid for lounge, which I could access by having a business class ticket on Emirates. Once I was inside there was a separate roped off area for Emirate’s customers. This was to give them a bit of peace and quiet, and it also hit some champagne hidden around the corner. I had the same experience in Manchester when flying British Airways, they use a paid for lounge there and they have a separate area for BA customers to sit in. It wasn’t very good at all. In the case of Luton Airport, they only have budget airlines, so the only lounges are paid for lounges. You could access one of them with the priority pass if you had one, but at the time I didn’t so I just bought it on top of my ticket. The lounge itself was quiet, Luton being an airport mostly for holiday makers and with only a handful of short-haul business customers. This meant the lounge was mostly people travelling on business wanting a quiet escape from the holiday makers.
Priority boarding
Many people ask me why I like to board early. I just do, I like to get on the plane, sort myself out, get my headphones and my iPad set up so I’m all ready for my flight. Also, I’d much rather sit on the plane and watch what’s going on outside than sit at the gate. On easyJet you can buy speedy boarding which allows you to board in the earlier groups and get the aircraft first. This is quite important for a budget airline as often overhead bin space is limited and it’s better to get on board first. Some of the seats that you can buy, like the front row seats and emergency seats often come with speedy boarding as part of that price. On this occasion, I hadn’t spent that much on my seat because I chose the seat towards the back of the aircraft. There was a very specific reason, quite often aircraft at Dortmund park backwards with a tail facing the building and as a result, they then start to exit through the rear of the aircraft. This is for a very amusing reason, they put the control tower at the wrong place at the airport and if the planes all park facing nose into the building the tails actually block the view to the runway. So if you’re at one of the gates at the building, they always park tail first.
Having paid for all these things did actually make my experience through Luton Airport feel more premium. Many of my AV friends don’t have a lot of nice things to say about Luton, but I honestly don’t think it’s the worst airport in the world. It does what it’s supposed to do, it’s a small airport for short-haul budget airlines, offering local carriers a place to go that isn’t one of the major expensive hubs. I certainly prefer Luton to Stansted.
What did it cost?
As I mentioned earlier this route was discontinued and I certainly can’t remember the costs now. So I’ve costed up an equivalent trip from London to Hamburg, on the same dates in June 2025. The only difference is BA fly from Heathrow and easyJet from Gatwick:
British Airways
Economy Basic – £106
Economy Plus – £134
Business £257
easyJet
Standard fare – £92
Essentials – add £44
Standard Plus: Speedy boarding, up front seat and cabin bag – add £46
Fast track – add £6
Lounge – add £38
Total cost: £182
As you can see the, easyJet fare with all the extras comes out between the BA Economy and Business fare.
To explain some of the fares, BA Basic is hand luggage only, Plus allows you a checked hold bag. With easyJet Standard gives you a “small” cabin bag under your seat, Essentials adds in a larger cabin bag. Even at the full cost with all the extras I wasn’t allowed a hold bag, that was extra again.
Bottom line
If you read my other articles, you will know that I very rarely fly budget airlines, but on this occasion, I did and I decided to pay the premiums to enjoy a few little luxuries to make the trip more pleasant. And honestly, it worked, the trip was quite enjoyable and honestly not much different to flying on a BA economy flight in terms of the general experience I had. Would I do it again? If I had to fly on a budget airline, yes, I’d probably pay for these extras to make the experience more pleasant.
