Does EasyJet have business class? This is a question you may not even have asked yourself before! The answer by the way, is no.
The low cost carrier is renowned for providing cheap no frills travel to some pretty interesting destinations around Europe, and a few in North Africa. If you’re prepared to travel with just a small bag of limited dimensions, you can even find one way flights for less than £25.
But what if you’re used to flying in European business class and you want to elevate your EasyJet experience to match? If you’re prepared to fork out for some of EasyJet’s extras, as well as pay for a few extras of your own, you can actually come surprisingly close!
On a recent EasyJet flight to Porto we did our very best to elevate our EasyJet flight experience to see if we could get it to compare with British Airway’s short haul business class. Read our EasyJet review to find out how we got on…
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The key differences
I’ll start here by pointing out what is the same. Both BA and EasyJet use Airbus A320 aircraft for short haul flights within Europe. BA business class flights in Europe do not give you a lay-flat bed. The perks that you will get with British Airways business class are as follows :
- Lounge access (where available).
- Fast track security and priority boarding.
- Check in via a dedicated business class desk.
- 2x23Kg luggage allowance per person, plus 56 x 45 x 25cm hand baggage allowance.
- A meal and complimentary drinks on board.
- Seating at the front of the plane (curtained off business section) with the middle seat blocked (sometimes it will have a tray between the armrests of the middle seat).
Pricing
First of all, lets take a look at pricing, just for comparison. I picked a random date and found BA Gatwick to Porto in business for £184 per person. Total cost = £368.
The screenshot above shows a list of the perks you get included with BA business class.
As for EasyJet, the bare bones price for the date that I chose is just £23.99 per person. I chose Luton to Porto, as this is the route we took in our experiment (BA does not operate from Luton). EasyJet does fly Gatwick to Porto, and the prices are very close.
Much much cheaper than BA, but EasyJet’s luggage allowance at this price is literally just a small bag which has to fall within 45 x 36 x 20cm in size. Total so far = £103.26.
In order to elevate our EasyJet experience to get somewhere close to BA’s business offering, there are some areas in which we cannot match them (dedicated check in desk for example). However there are a few things we can to splash out on which will help to even things up as best we can :
- Paying for the middle seat on each leg (in order to block it).
- Paying to sit up front.
- Paying for fast track security.
- Paying for priority boarding.
- Paying for extra luggage.
- Paying for lounge access.
You can see that the key word above is ‘paying’!!!
How we did it
We flew to Porto from Luton in early December 2024. Through a judicious choice of add-ons, we managed to elevate the experience a good amount without exceeding the equivalent cost of flying BA’s business class to Porto.
- Luggage. We paid to have 1x23Kg hold luggage each (£42.43 extra per flight, per person). Combined with the allowed 45 x 36 x 20cm cabin bag allowance, this was more than enough for our three night trip to Porto.
- Fast track security. £8 per person at Luton.
- Lounge access. We used My Lounge at Luton, which is included in my credit card perks. However if you wanted to book ahead and pay as you go, this lounge at Luton is £30 per person to pre-book. The lounge was decent, with nice food and drink, although no views of the runway or taxi way.
- Food and drink. There’s no getting around this one, if you fly business on BA you will be able to drink champagne until they either run out or politely tell you that they think you’ve had quite enough! EasyJet don’t even sell champagne, so instead we splurged £14.25 for a Freixenet prosecco and an Aperol Spritz. Having eaten breakfast in the lounge shortly before take off, we saw no reason to eat any of EasyJet’s food offerings en route.
- Priority boarding. This was not included with our specific luggage selection, and we did not bother with this. I will go on to explain why below!
- Legroom. For £10.50 extra per person we were able to select the seats right at the front of the aircraft in row 1, which have far more legroom. We chose the aisle and window seat, and then paid for the middle seat separately (see below). This is actually an advantage over BA, as their row 1 seats in business are usually only open to Gold Status Executive Club members. Because row 1 has a dedicated overhead bin for that row only, there is really no benefit to paying extra for priority boarding, as you will have your own reserved luggage space anyway!
- Extra seat. To take advantage of this trick you will need to book an extra flight (£23.99) with the passenger’s first name as ‘Extra’ and last name ‘Seat’. You will be best to put this through as a separate booking, then skip the luggage options and pay to choose the middle seat. Because you haven’t paid for any luggage options, a higher price of £19.99 to choose the middle seat in the front row is now applied. That makes a grand total of £43.98 extra cost on this flight for the luxury of having the three seats to yourselves! You may need to call EasyJet to match up the two bookings.
Price comparison
So let’s run the numbers then. For the date chosen as an example, British Airways business class comes in at £184 per person. How does EasyJet compare when you add in the extras needed to try and make an equivalent experience?
The total cost of adding in all the extras in an attempt to elevate our EasyJet experience to try and compete with BA’s business class was £288.07 (including the £60 to pre-book the lounge), versus £368 for the cost of taking an equivalent trip with BA. EasyJet ended up only slightly cheaper with the extras than splashing out on BA business class seats then.
If we added in another 23Kg hold bag each, plus a proper sized cabin bag, and bought food on the flight, the EasyJet trip would actually end up costing us more! We simply didn’t need all this for a 3 day trip to Porto though.
As good as British Airways business class?
We have flown BA business class within Europe on their A320 aircraft, so are in a position to make an objective comparison.
On the BA product you really do feel a lot more pampered, as the crew are dedicated to the business class area, and are frequently offering further drinks or asking if you need anything else. The in flight meal is a key difference, and is (usually) far superior on BA to the overpriced re-heated offerings on EasyJet. We were happy to do without food on this short trip, but on a longer flight (such as to Turkey or Cyprus) the complimentary meal on BA would be most welcome.
Having said all that, the crew on our EasyJet flight were very jolly and attentive, and could not be faulted in this regard.
A major advantage of EasyJet on the other hand, is the increased likelihood of being able to get a lot of extra leg room by booking row 1 (as long as you are booking well ahead before someone else has the same idea!). Combine this with making a booking to block out the middle seat, and you can give yourselves a great deal of legroom and comfort.
If you asked me to choose, I’d still prefer to fly on BA business class, because it somehow just feels special. Overall though, our EasyJet review was a fun experiment to do, and we enjoyed far a more comfortable and relaxing EasyJet flight by adding in all the extras.
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