Flight report – Scandinavian Airlines BHX/CPH/BHX

Afternoon folks…. well here’s my first flight report!

This was my first flight with SAS Scandinavian Airlines, and scheduled on Boeing 737-600’s both directions.

Outbound on Friday 19th December, we were listed on flight SK2534 due to depart Birmingham International at 1045am. SAS use Terminal 1 at BHX, and are handled and checked-in by Aviance. There was hardly any queue for check-in at BHX. As we were on stand-by, I had to take the time to explain this to the Aviance staff and that my ticket was valid for Business Class. The check-in agent then told me that the flight was very full, and a seat number (if any!) could not be assigned until reaching the departure gate. This had be very worried!

As we were a little later than planned arriving at BHX, we then went straight to the departure lounge where SK2534 had started boarding! If any of you know BHX at all, we boarded from Gate 53 which is at the far end of the international pier, and a long walk! To my horror, I found the queue for our flight stretched right back as far as Gate 40 (the gate that Continental use for EWR flights). However, the nice man from SAS gave me two lovely seats in business class and told me to join the queue! Boarding was slow, and therefore the flight left around 30mins late. Aircraft outbound was LN-RPZ (a tad dirty!).

Service on-board SAS was very good. The cabin crew are very attentive, and even did a liquer service seperate to main drinks, considering this was only a 1hr 30min flight I was impressed. The flight was virtually full. Our meal in Business consisted of cold Chicken (no surprise there!) with pasta salad and warm bread. It was actually very filling! I think they got sandwiches and chocolate down the back.

I think the funniest thing about the 737-600 is SAS have got 2 proper passenger windows in the forward lavatory! I don’t know if they had the same thing down the back ( I didn’t fancy venturing into Economy!). The lavatories on SAS were really something, floor to ceiling mirrors, loads of room and these windows! Very unusual. The 737-600 itself was nice inside, very much how you would expect a SAS aircraft to look. However, the forward galley was also far bigger than the gallies on any bmi 737’s I’ve ever flown on.

After holding for a while over CPH with grey sky all around, we landed into T3. It seems to be SK policy to disembark from the rear door for international “non-schengen” flights (unless the airbridge was broken and they made this up!) so we had to wait for a bus then. CPH is a very modern and welcoming airport. Queue’s for immigration were a little long, but all in all its a nice airport. Again, very warm and typically Scandinavian with lots of wood all around.

Coming home was a totally different story. We planned to get SK2531 on Sunday 21st Decemeber at 1730. Unfortunaly, we got a rather slow and very unhelpful check-in agent who didn’t understand the concept of Business class stand-by at all! She referred us back the ticket desk, and by the time we got back to check-in the queues were dredful! Eventually, we got our business class seats again. The SAS Business lounge at CPH is very large and had little atmosphere, although plenty of facilities like internet access etc.

Boarding this time was a lot more efficient (with the help of one of the Hostie’s borrowed from our aircraft to help boarding!) and via airbridge. We boarding LN-RPX (Nanna Viking) on time, and left just a couple of minutes behind scheduled but made this up enroute. They must have some policy about the safety demo being in local language, as outbound it was in english and from CPH it was in Danish! Service again was very good, considering they only operate with minimum 3 cabin crew too. Fresh salmon was served this time, along with warm bread again, and the standard liquer and coffee service after. We arrived back at BHX ahead of schedule and disembarked quickly. We did have quite a wait for luggage at BHX, but this is nothing new!

All in all, a highly recommended airline. CPH terminal 3 seems to be mainly SAS though, did walk past one of their A330’s waiting for a load of passengers. Numerous SK MD80 series all around, and the odd A321. Didn’t get to see a lot of other airlines there though.

Hope it was worth reading anyway!

Cheers,

Markus