There’s nothing like the mind of an aviation enthusiast to create different itneraries from point A to point B. As soon as I heard I was going to cover the CAPA Airline Leader Summit 2022, in Manchester, I started to think of what different routings I could make to bring some content to our website.

Luckily, the event started just after the kickoff of the IATA Summer 2022 season, a turning point for network planners especially in a highly seasonal continent like Europe. With this, Jet2, one of the UK’s main holiday airlines, had just returned to Pisa, with two weekly flights from Manchester.

So off I went, booking with Jet2. The route is also served by easyJet — currently with five weekly frequencies — and Ryanair — currently with four. These two were cheaper than Jet2, but not by much.

As I said last year in my review of Europe’s LCCs websites, I kinda like their webpage. The only problem is that it’s heavily British-centered, but that’s just part of their business model I guess. Finding a low fare, though, was easy, although the lowest fare was available until the last minutes before my flight.

Jet2 currently operates from 10 bases in the UK: Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London (Stansted), Manchester and Newcastle, though this summer Pisa will only receive flights from Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.

Essentially, it was the second Pisa-Manchester of the season, and with Jet2’s customer base being mostly British, it was not a surprise that the flight would be empty.

In Italy, it was a beautiful day to fly — and to catch a train too. I hitched a ride in one of the first trains to Pisa and arrived some hours before. This was the sight during my transit in Empoli station:

One of the greatest things of Pisa Airport is the “Pisamover”, which is an automated people mover car that connects Pisa Centrale station to the terminal in about five minutes.

The only problem is that, for early departures or late arrivals — which is often the case here, as Ryanair bases a lot of aircraft in the Tuscan airport — there is no service.

LS884 PSA-MAN

But the Jet2 flight was in a good time, so in two hours I got from Siena to the terminal by train, using the same ticket with Trenitalia.

The terminal was looking good that day, although it is clearly strained. Luckily works for a new terminal were started a month ago, and the building is expected to be finished by February 2024.

The current structure can barely take this level of traffic, but I think the airport operator does what it can with it.

Check-in was opened two hours before departure. I had done so online already — the Jet2 app is also great by the way — but, because I’m an extra-Schengen/UK national, I needed to do the visa check in the counter anyway.

After a quick review of my passport, I had my boarding pass in hand.

There was still some time to spare, though, as I checked the inbound flight on FlightRadar24 was on time.

A quick walk to the extra-Schengen gates followed, with the passport clearence done in the blink of an eye.

The extra-Schengen flights in Pisa leave from a higher level in the building. It’s an area that has boarding bridges that are never used, given the low-cost nature of the airport.

The flight was nearly empty so there was no rush. During check-in, the agent had told me “around 80” passengers would be on board, which meant at best, if there were 89 passengers onboard, a 47.1% load factor in Jet2’s dense configuration of 189 seats. But remember that this was second flight of the season back to the UK, so I guess that was expected.

Boarding was started at 09h52.

We got downstairs along the boarding bridge to walk to our aircraft. Gotta love that, especially in a day like this. At 10h01 we were given the green light by the crew to walk our way to the airplane.

Our flight today would be operated by G-GDFF. According to Planespotters.net, this is an airframe with a lot of mileage, originally delivered to Air Europa in November 1999, even before Boeing started adding winglets to the 737NGs, as per B737.org.uk.

So Fox Fox has retained its original configuration without winglets to this day, even after being leased by Jet2, in December 2011, after 12 years of service to Air Europa.

If you haven’t noticed yet, this airframe is in Jet2holidays’ livery. It took me a while to realise that it is not the airline’s “old” livery. To the contrary, even their newly-leased A321s sport these vibrant colors.

In fact, this is a huge billboard advertisement for Jet2holidays, which is a large part of their business. According to their investors’ filings, in the year finished in March 2019, over half of their passengers had bought a package with the vacations company.

While Jet2 was started before Jet2holidays, the tour packages business grew to be a company in its own right.

Right from the start the cabin look friendly, with this cool rug welcoming passengers.

And the cabin looked super fresh too. Now it’s remarkable that a low-cost carrier would have two different seat colors, but while you could argue that this design would hurt the eyes, you can’t say it doesn’t look cool. It’s like with Wizz Air and their pink/purple tones.

The cabin was also clean and tidy despite the short turnaround (not having seatback pockets always helps with that).

The seats were quite unique, I’ll give you that; but they were as comfortable as any other seat in a narrowbody would these days.

Boarding was finished in nine minutes, at 10h10, and since the row behind was free and it was an emergency exit, I jumped there.

Legroom was plenty!

The day was beautiful out there, and the airport was flocked with tourists. Great to see.

At 10h26, four minutes before schedule, pushback was started, and in no time we were on our way to the active runway.

Outside the terminal we could see some of the aircraft that usually stay parked in Pisa: a Star Air 767-200, a Bluebird Nordic 737-800 and Silver Air’s Let 410, which performs the subsidized flights to Elba Island.

At 10h36, G-GDFF lined up and took off from runway 04R, lifting with ease as the load was light.

While, as most low-costs in Europe, Jet2 offered no entertainment onboard, the views from the window were so cool.

Well, in fact they did offer entertainment; besides their menu and their duty free catalog, they had a magazine, which served more as a huge advertisement for their holiday destinations than anything else.

The menu was colourful and almost more interesting than the magazine.

The view of the Alps was fantastic as always.

As we crossed the Alps, the crew started onboard service, first bringing pre-ordered hot food in pretty meal boxes.

Here I must add that this crew was perhaps the most fabulous I’d seen in years, such was their warmness and friendliness. They really made a positive difference towards a great flight for everyone.

I wanted to try their warm toasties, but they were not available. So I went for their chicken roll. To drink, Irn Bru.

The chicken roll was tasty, although it was not warm I think it was sold for a fair price nevertheless.

And it tasted, in fact, much better than it looked…

After I finished my meal, I went taking some photos of the cabin for this report.

Jet2’s business is completely turned towards leisure travel, and I felt like the atmosphere onboard was also that way, from the attitude of the crew to the signage in the luggage bins.

My only criticism towards the cabin layout was perhaps the armrest between the seats, which was much cheaper than anything I’d seen even in other low cost carriers.

The tray table had an average size, and anyway since they mostly serve small bites onboard, it wouldn’t need to be any larger.

But with time I started liking their red-gray combination.

The funniest feature of them all, though, was inside their lavatories — I had to strecth to catch it in its entirety. My favorite lavatory, though, would come in the following flight. Stay tuned…

Back to my seat, an overview of the cabin, which again, was clean and tidy — I bet it’s even better with the Sky Interior.

To finish the flight, I ordered a coffee. More importantly than the Starbucks sign (it tasted like any other airplane coffee), I kinda liked this metal cup holder. It’s a clever solution for the passenger, yet cheap for the airline.

You always know you’re approaching the United Kingdom when you reach that endless cloud layer. It was my first time in England (I had visited Scotland a month before), so I was quite excited for that trip.

We then expedited our descent into Manchester. A smooth sail proceeded, and at 11h47 we landed at Manchester’s runway 23R.

A relatively short taxi to terminal 2 went like a breeze and soon we were in our parking position, finishing a great first experience with Jet2.

And guess in which day I’d leave the UK!

To welcome us back in the UK, they provided every passenger a “Rain Cheque”, one that granted a GBP60 discount in the next holiday booked with Jet2holidays. A nice yet effective touch in driving loyalty to customers returning home after a great time out.

Deboarding was calm and quick given the light load of the aircraft, and in a couple of minutes I was on Manchester’s enourmous terminal 2. I swear the walk to the arrivals area felt longer than the flight itself…

Final remarks

I was curious to see how Jet2 stood up against the likes of Ryanair and Wizz Air. After all, they are a low cost that is much less known by the rest of Europe than these two.

While that’s a deliberate strategy, as they’re mainly seeking the loyalty of UK consumers anyway, I wanted to see if they’d be a nice option against the other airlines for visiting the United Kingdom.

Did they pass the test? Absolutely. With an easy booking experience, gracious employees, tidy cabins and a wide range of options of food onboard, I wouldn’t think twice of booking again with them if they have the lowest fare next time.

The only downside is their limited network and schedules given their own nature as a leisure carrier; but next time they have the lowest fares and you have the flexibility, I highly recommend Jet2 for your next trip.