Whenever Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary has been out of the news for awhile he suggests charging passengers to use the lavatory or squeezing more passengers into planes by making them all stand up throughout flight. His message is that they keep costs down and flying with them is cheap.
However Ryanair’s primary competitor, easyJet, is reported to have beaten them to the punch with ‘backless seats’.
#easyjet beats @Ryanair to have backless seats. @IATA @EASA this is flight 2021 Luton to Geneva. How can this be allowed. @GeneveAeroport @easyJet_press @easyJet pic.twitter.com/EthMoWRR8P
— Matthew Harris (@mattiasharris) August 6, 2019
easyJet’s response to this was to ask that the photo be taken down.
Hi Matthew, thanks for bringing this to our attention, before we can investigate this could I ask you to remove the photograph & then DM us more info regarding this, so we can best assist you. Ross https://t.co/Qq2zhBAizh
— easyJet (@easyJet) August 6, 2019
Twitter users wondered if that’s the response to visible issues, how does the airline handle problems customers can’t see? And while the airline wrote several times that safety is their top priority, other users were concerned that this photo – reportedly taken on board easyjJet flight 2051 from London Luton to Geneva – suggests otherwise.
For a flight departing the U.K. still others naturally were concerned not about the passenger without a seat back, but the passenger in the row behind who would have no tray to put their gin and tonic down on.
As surprising as this seems, two years ago a Pakistan International Airways flight from Karachi to Medina took off with 7 more passengers than seats, and so they had to stand for the 1700 mile flight. And at the beginning of this year a British family had to sit on the floor of a 900 mile TUI flight when they were assigned seats that didn’t exist on the aircraft.
Indeed Airbus filed a patent for double decker seating.
However what leads me to be a little skeptical of this easyJet photo is that it was tweeted while the aircraft was still inflight and I’m not aware of easyJet offering inflight internet. [Update: the photo was apparently taken and sent prior to takeoff, I’ve seen no evidence yet anyone actually sat there inflight.]
(HT: @involupgrade)
It’s a cut throat low fare airline she’s lucky she had a seat bottom to sit on
Normally those seats don’t permit lavatory useage onboard either 🙂
Seriously I would take a bus or swim before getting on Ryan Air ugh
Well, this would be an EASA violation if true, hence why Easyjet is asking to take the photo down…
Good idea for easyJet to ask the photo be removed. Don’t want to give Doug Parker any more ideas 😉
That’s clearly an exit row and there likely no seat there at all, it’s just a woman squatting down
See armrest Ed
@ed if you go to twitter and see the picture you can see that there is a seat and no seat back for it or the one next to it. There is also a note saying the seat is inoperable on the seat itself. The passenger was moved to an another seat once boarding was finished. They were only sitting there until one became available. They would not be permitted to stay there.
Mashable has an EasyJet statement. The seat was broken and was waiting for repair. Unclear if the woman was assigned in the seat, or that she took it because it was free. Regardless, EasyJet FA’s should have stepped in. And I am with the passenger who did not remove the picture.
https://mashable.com/article/easy-jet-backless-seats/
The other thing I find funny in the photo, and yes I know I cant see everyone, but no one is wearing their seatbelts. Now I have flown many times and the statistical likelyhood of those people, that close without their seatbelts on is slim to none IMO. I am certainly skeptical as to the validity of the image
No Deal Brexit = UK gets to do whatever we want!
She wasn’t actually authorized to sit there (there’s another article on this).