It’s quite a simple pondering today, but one which genuinely puzzles me. It just so happens that I have travelled on 6 Easyjet flights in the last 3 weeks so have had plenty of time to observe this phenomenon. For those who are frequent travellers on the Orange Airline, they will perhaps remember that in days gone by there was no seat allocation on their planes, and it was a simple case of ‘First come, First served’. Therefore people threw away their manners, extended their sharp elbows and shoved their way to the front of the queue in order to board the plane first, and consequently get ‘the best seat’.  This I can sympathise with, as some passengers prefer the window, some the aisle, others the front of the plane and so on.

However, this is no longer the case. When booking an Easyjet flight all passengers are now allocated a seat on the plane as part of the booking process. Couples or families are cleverly placed on seats together, hence avoiding this mad rush for the ‘best seats’. I believe there is even a system to choose your seats for an extra cost if passengers so desire, therefore if a long legged traveller is desperate for the emergency exit seat, then they have this option.

So just to reiterate, it makes absolutely NO difference at what time you board that plane, your seat is there waiting for you, empty until you grace it with your bottom. Whether you get on that plane first or last, you will spend your journey in the same seat.

So why, may I ask, is there a snaking queue from the boarding gate long before the flight has even been called to board? Clearly it makes no difference to my journey, I just sit comfortably in my seat in the waiting room until there is no more queue, then board the flight with the few remaining passengers and head straight for my seat. But WHY do people feel the need to queue for SUCH a long time, when it makes not the slightest difference to their flying experience? And it’s not just on the occasional flight, it’s EVERY one! Flying from Nice to Geneva last week there were people queuing from easily an hour before the flight had even started to board; standing in a queue for over an hour, when they could have been sitting comfortably in a nearby seat reading their newspaper.

This is something that genuinely puzzles me and I can’t think of any reason why it happens other than that in our society people just feel the need to queue! But doesn’t everybody hate queuing? I certainly do, and will do anything in my power to avoid it.

I have no doubt that this will continue to happen and it will continue to amuse me. Long live the hapless queuer!