“It will turn left but it won’t turn right”

A very amusing and enjoyable report

I love your reports, another great one 🙂

isn’t that a a massive way around, from Kastrup to AMS to London to Birmingham?

A very enjoyable report! 😀

The story of SK2533 CPH-BHX, 17th September 2004

SK2533 Copenhagen Kaastrup – Birmingham Elmdon
17th September 2004
MD-87 SE-DIF/SE-DIP

After nearly a week of booths and meetings, a bright sunny Friday morning saw me in a cab from the city centre to Copenhagen’s Kaastrup airport. SK2533 was due to depart at 08:25 so not knowing what the queues would be liked I’d decided I should try to get to the airport for shortly after 07:00 (ugh, I hate early starts!).

Kaastrup’s terminal three is bright and airy, possibly in an attempt to chear up the long lines queuing for Scandinavian economy class checkin. There were only three or four people at the Star Alliance gold card desks, but for a change I thought I’d try the self-service checkin machines. Inserting the credit card used for the booking makes the machine retrieve the booking, after which an automatically assigned seat is offered. No thanks, I want a window seat near the front thank you, so having declined what was offered it was simply three of four touches on the screen to move myself to 10A and to tell the machine I had a bag to check, after which it spat out my credit card, a boarding pass and a bag tag. I attached the bag tag to my tag with a slight degree of trepidation – if it came off and the bag got lost, it’d be my fault rather than the fault of an agent at a check-in desk! All that remained was to leave the bag at the baggage drop desk, and to walk upstairs to security. The queue was one person long and everything including myself went through without beeps or questions, so at around 07:15 I was looking for the Star Alliance Gold lounge.

Scandinavian’s first / Star Gold lounge is pleasant and comfortable, but has no views of the aeroplanes. At this early hour, they were offering “breakfast” fare plus the usual array of drinks. Being earlier than I’d expected, I had a while to read an English paper, take something light to eat, and to check my e-mail on the PCs provided. One interesting fact is that there are big serrated fruit knives available in the lounge, and no security checks inbetween lounge and gate – oh well, maybe they just “trust” their frequent flyers!

08:00 came and shortly afterwards “Gate A14 – Go to gate” appeared on the displays. A14 is just about as far away from the lounge as possible, but a slow walk past the huge array of shops and half-dormant humanity also waiting for flights still got me to gate A14 by 08:10. Noticable was the complete disinterest shown in my passport by Danish immigration, and an array of shiny and slightly unusual (to this British enthusiast, anyway) aeroplanes – Air Greenland A330 (very smart), a Bae146 from the Faroe Islands and another belonging to Blue 1, two Air Baltic 737s, an Estonian Air 737, a Kathcargo Airways 737, several Wideroes Dash-8s, Sterling multi-coloured 737s and Maersk Air 737s (most in the new colours), a pair of Nordic MD-80s, and a significant number of Scandinavian aircraft including MDs, A321s, A330s, A340s and Dash-8 400s.

SE-DIF, an MD-87, was to be our charriot back to Birmingham, and boarding started just as I reached the gate. The efficient process was finished in only a few minutes, and promptly at 08:25 SK2533 pushed with around half its seats occupied. Only a few moments later and the two Pratt and Whitney JT-8s were running and the tug was disconnected. Then we waited – taxi clearance delayed, I presumed. Then a ground engineer walked from the front, under the wing, to the back. A few seconds later, he walked back to the front again – hmmm!

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a technical problem with this aeroplane. It will turn left, but it will not turn right. The FCU (Flight Control Unit) is broken and we need an engineer to investigate. I will shortly be shutting down the engines again.” Oh dear, and thank God for the flight controls check on the checklist prior to taxi! Five minutes later “Ladies and gentlemen, to get the aeroplane fixed we have to be moved to another gate where the engineers can inspect it.” And so we were off very slowly, the tug having been reconnected, to gate B36 where we came to a halt again and the doors were opened. Great, thirty minutes after departure time and we’d made it from gate A14 to gate B36!

09:10: “Ladies and gentlemen, the engineer has said that there is no way this aeroplane is going to fly again today because it needs a full control function check. We therefore have to find another aeroplane for you. I will keep you informed.”

09:20: “Ladies and gentlemen, our operations have found another aeroplane for us at the hangar, and it will be moved next to us in 15 minutes time. It then has to be cleaned and catered and we need to transfer you bags. We hope will will be able to depart again at 10:00.”

The cabin crew served orange juice to us all, which was needed as the cabin was getting quite warm – the APU had been shut down so there was no air coming through the vents. At almost exactly 09:35 MD-87 SE-DIP appeared out of the right hand windows and was tugged onto gate B34. Ah, so it’s to be SE-DIP and not SE-DIF then!

Just after 09:45: “Ladies and gentlement, the airport ask for us to take you all by bus to the terminal after which they will bring you all again by bus to the other aeroplane next to us. However, we choose not to do this but to do the other. So please collect your bags and coats and leave by the rear door.” We all just got off SE-DIF, walked across the ramp from B36 to B34, and climbed up the rear stairs into SE-DIP. Easy, and no buses!

At two minutes to 10, the doors were armed, the tug lurched, and SE-DIP started to push back to undertake the continuation of SK2533 to Birmingham. There was that pregnant and quiet pause after pushback and engine start was complete, when we were all looking at each other, but then out second MD-87 of the day started to move under its own power. A small cheer came from the normally reserved Scandinavians.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you will be pleased to learn that this aeroplane will turn both left and right. In my experience, that was about the fastest I have ever managed to change aeroplanes and we are away exactly as I told you at 10:00. We will now do our best to get you to Birmingham as soon as possible and the computer says we will be landing at around 10:50 UK local time. I am sorry for the delay and inconvenience and I hope you enjoy your flight.”

And that was about it… We routed via Hamburg, Amsterdam (excellent views of Schipol) and north of London rather than the normal route over Scotland, supposedly because Scottish was rather congested, breakfast was pretty average – yoghurt, juice, cheese, ham, bread rolls and jam plus coffee – and the flight smooth with the exception of the last few minutes into Birmingham where the low cloud and rain put a few bumps into the system. SK2533 finally blocked on in Birmingham at around 11:00 UK time, ten minutes after the captain had predicted and just over an hour and a half later than scheduled. For once, the baggage was fast and ten minutes later I was on my way to the car park.

All in all, fairly well handled by Scando (my 25th flight with them) although their explanation of the technical problems was entertaining. Thanks if you stuck with me – next flight to Milan next week on Lufthansa, which I’ll report on if anything unusual happens.

Andy

An entertaining report.

My next goal is to get on a T tailed aircraft, preferably an MD.