Review of Norwegian flight Stockholm → Berlin in Economy

Hello and welcome to another short series! This series will cover my classtrip to Berlin that took place in late-May. The first part will cover the first flight between Stockholm ARN and Berlin SXF.


Background:
I'm about to enjoy my last days with my current class before I continue my studies in a new school with new people from August 2016. I've been with my current crazy class since August 2012. I've had lots of amazing experiences with my fun but crazy class until now, I've shared so many memories with these people over the years and it was time for a 'grand finale' before we would split up to different paths this summer. Since grade 6 (in 2012) my class has done a lot to save up money for a class trip that was planned to take place in May 2016. We've sold cookies, clothes, food at special events and more. My class is very diverse, we literally have one person from every category. Almost everyone is friends with each other. In general we're pretty loud but still nice to each other. My class is also filled with a lot of cultures, most of us are born in Sweden but have parents from other countries. We have people in my class that have parents from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Sweden, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Belgium, Syria, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh (me) India (me) and more!

Some of us were pessimistic about this planned class trip (including me), the pessimistic ones never thought we'd manage to get out of Sweden for the class trip. Some of us were very optimistic and were sure that we'd able to save up for an international trip. I remember when I joked about getting to Norrköping a few years ago (a city 163 km from STO). Time flew by and all of the pessimistic classmates (including me) were proven wrong, we would go to Berlin, Germany with our class. I was the one that booked the tickets with Norwegian. My class would finally go on a class trip, internationally after years of hard work! We also had two parents with us and one of them would be my mother.




NOTE: Some pictures are taken with my phone and some with my camera





Part 1 - ARN-SXF DY4507, Norwegian, Boeing 737-800, LN-DYE - You are here
Part 2 - SXF-ARN DY4508, Norwegian, Boeing 737-800, LN-DYT - Coming soon







Our class had school on this day (23 May) until 14:15 (2:15 PM), some classmates living far away were allowed to go home earlier. I quickly went home after school had ended to take a shower and to do some final packing. The majority of the class would get to ARN by bus and train together with our class teacher, some of us including me would get there privately. I planned to arrive at ARN before everyone else to check-in earlier and to be able to help everyone else with the check-in process when the rest of the pack arrived. I had one medium-sized bag with me, we were allowed to check-in two bags per person as part of a special group booking.


Me and my mom would get to ARN by bus (Flygbussarna, Airport Coaches), the bus stop is only 7 minutes away by walking distance from our home.


Here comes the bus!


The bus was pretty empty and this seems to be normal for this route (Brommaplan - Arlanda), the economical viability of this route is questionable. My options of getting to ARN would reduce if this route got axed in the future. Anyway, we left 'Norgegatan' at 16:07 local time as you can see on the picture.


On the E4 motorway to Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.


There was a decent amount of traffic to Arlanda at this time of the day, lots of people going home after work.


Taking the exit to Arlanda Airport, at 16:34 local time.


Welcome to Stockholm-Arlanda Airport!


Terminal 5 departures is seen on the upper level with arrivals on the lower level.


Terminal 5 departures.


Our Volvo 9700 came to a stop at 16:39 local time, the trip took 32 minutes. The friendly driver helped us to get our bags from the luggage hold.


Walking to the departure hall.


ARN didn't seem to be too busy at this moment.


FIDS, you can see our 19:30 departure to Berlin SXF.


Me and my mom walked to the Norwegian check-in area, it's located next to the security control for gates 11-24. We checked-in our bags using one of the available check-in kiosks. The process was very simple and was done without any hassle.


Placing my bag at the bag-drop area. You just place your bag on the belt and scan the baggage tag with a scanner. The system calculates the weight of your bag and then the belt starts moving and you're good to go. Staff is always available to assist you in case something gets wrong or if you don't understand how this works.


Norwegian bag-drop and check-in area.


My mom decided to sit somewhere after check-in, I walked around SkyCity awaiting the arrival of my fellow classmates. SkyCity is the name of the middle section of Arlanda, there are shops, restaurants, other stores and hotels here. The train station (excluding Arlanda Express) is also found here.


The majority of my classmates arrived at 17:22 local time, with a slightly delayed train from Stockholm. I directed them to the DY check-in desks and check-in began for my class. I managed to help 35-40% of the class with the check-in process, the rest helped each other.


We went through security after everyone was done with checking-in, security was smooth for everyone except for two classmates. Unfortunately two classmates had brung lots of drinks with them in their hand luggage despite all of the warnings and information they'd received from our teachers. They had to throw away all of their drinks before we moved on.


Boarding was scheduled to commence at 19:00 local time, our assigned gate was gate 16C and is located before the passport control for gates 17-24. Gates 11-16 are Schengen gates and are frequently used for DY's (and other airlines') Schengen flights from ARN. Gates 17-24 are usually used by TK, SU, B2, PC, DY (long-haul) and more. We were allowed to wander around in the terminal until 18:55 when we had to meet up at the gate for boarding.


I don't have many spotting pictures to share this time, I wasn't on a spotting mood this day. However, most of my classmates were very supportive of my hobby which I am very appreciative of, some of them even offered to go spotting with me. 'Rohel! Let's walk around to look at airplanes and show us when you photograph them with your camera!', comments like this were given to me several times haha


SK 736 pushback, backlit.


Backlit DY 738.


My 55mm lens was used for all of these shots, I was too lazy to switch to my 200mm lens. A lot of cropping was done to make these pictures slightly more pleasing to look at. SK CR9.


LH A320.


DY B738.


Thomson B763.


I was notified by Norwegian at precisely 18:45 local time, 15 minutes before the scheduled time of boarding. There had been a gate change for our flight, from gate 16C to Gate 11. I quickly notified my teachers of the gate change and walked around the terminal to notify the majority of my class of the gate change.


There was a DY 738 at gate 11 but this was not headed for SXF, this was DY4531 to Amsterdam AMS.


Pushback for the flight to AMS took place at 18:52.


Here's our ride to Berlin! This 737-800 arrived from Helsinki HEL at 19:19, we were supposed to board this plane at 19:00 but that would never happen with a 19:19 arrival of our bird. Meanwhile, DY notified me of a delayed departure of 20 minutes (from 19:30 to 19:50)


This particular plane LN-DYE, was delivered to Norwegian in 2010 and is almost 6 years old today.








Flight information:

Airline: Norwegian Air Shuttle

Flight no & route: DY4507 ARN-SXF

Scheduled time of departure (actual): 19:30 (19:59) UTC +2

Scheduled time of arrival (actual) : 21:05 (21:16) UTC +2

Scheduled flight time (actual): 1h 35 min (1h 17 min)




SAS-painted Mercedes-Benz Sprinters. A guy from my class told me to take a picture of these, I wouldn't have taken one if he hadn't asked me to. In the end, I'm glad he did haha.


Boarding finally commenced at approximately 19:30. My class was one of the last ones to board as we were seated in the front rows.


Passengers seated at rows 15-31 were obliged to board from the rear. My class was seated at rows 7-11 which meant all of us boarded with the jetbridge.


There was an FA greeting all of the passengers upon boarding, she seemed to have a genuine smile today. A classmate behind me told her that we were on a classtrip to Berlin, she replied 'How fun!' but in Swedish of course ;). I later went and settled into seat 7F, DY selected the seats for us and I'm glad they gave me a window seat.


LN-DYE was equipped with overhead monitors but without BSI (Boeing Sky Interior).


Acceptable seat pitch for a flight of this length.


The heat in the plane was killing most of the passengers, it took a long time before the crew adjusted the ECS.


Overhead bins.


Safety card of this Boeing 737-800.


The safety video was shown on these overhead monitors, pushback commended a few minutes later at 19:50.


Pushback from gate 11.


'In a while you will be fine bag', or just a barf bag.


Martin1405 made sure to track my flight, thank you so much!


The weather was good in Stockholm today, it was warm and pretty sunny.


LX1254 from Zurich, my friend Martin1405 will be on this flight on August 1 this year. I hope he writes a flight report of that flight :).


Taxiing to runway 19R as DY4507 to Berlin SXF.


Swiss A320.


Aeroflot A320.


Primera Air B738.


There were a lot of mixed feelings about flying in my class. Some were scared, some were calm as they had already racked up a decent amount of flying experience, some were excited and some were chatting with each other.


Holding short of 19R.


Lining up with runway 19R.


Takeoff from runway 19R at 19:59.




We had a healthy load today, I couldn't count many empty seats. The flight must've been close to full or full.


Climbing out of runway 19R.


I'm aware of the fact that this screenshot is in full-size. I tried to resize it but the screenshot didn't get smaller in length/width here. All screenshots are provided by Martin1405.


We departed at 19:59 and our ETA was 21:16 as you can see on the picture, not too bad.


There wasn't much to do on this flight, I couldn't see much from the window because I was facing the sun.


Most of my classmates used Norwegian's free Wi-Fi or chatted with each other throughout the flight. There wasn't much else happening.


The DY menu, some menu items were only available on flights over 2 hours in length.


There were some other menu items in the N by Norwegian magazine if I remember corectly. The prices are typical Scandinavian-prices. 25 SEK (USD 3) for a cinnamon bun, approximately 80 SEK (USD 9,85) for a sub with a drink. These are normal prices in Scandinavia.


A friend seated at 7D bought a can of coke and offered me to take a picture of it, they all know that I make flight reports haha. All of them are very supportive of my hobby as I mentioned earlier :). Thank you so much!


My other friend seated next to me on 7E bought a cinnamon bun and also offered me to take a picture of it, thank you!. It was good but it took a while for him to get it because they had to heat it up. The FAs were very friendly on this flight, friendlier than the crew on my CPH flights.


The tray table.


Our initial descent began at 19:56, 22 minutes before our estimated time of arrival at SXF.


Banking.


Lining up with the runway, getting closer to SXF.


I bumped up the ISO to get shots like these.


Landing at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport, at 21:16 local time.


Slowing down on runway 25R.


Taxiing to our stand.


Company 737 from Copenhagen.


Officially at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport.


We disembarked by stairs at 21:25 local time.


Thank you Norwegian for another smooth intra-European flight! They got me from point A to point B safely for a reasonable flight without too much hassle. Most of their planes are pretty new as well.


Baggage claim area.


It took a while before everyone got their bags, we went to the S-Bahn station shortly afterwards.


We got to our hostel by S- and U-Bahn, we arrived at approximately 23:10 local time. That's it for this FR, thank you so much for taking your time to read it!

















TOURISM BONUS:

Pictures from Alexanderplatz


Parts of East Berlin with all of the Soviet-style buildings.


Fernsehturm


Views from the Fernsehturm.


All of the Soviet-style buildings on the Eastern part of Berlin.


Brandenburger Tor


The Reichstag building.


Other random pictures from Berlin