Welcome to a new short series of two flight reports! This short series will cover my short visit to Copenhagen, Denmark in late-October.
Background:
This trip to Copenhagen was a completely spontaneous trip that wasn't really planned. It basically turned out like this, on one random day in October I told my dad I hadn't tried Norwegian (DY) yet. He thought I had flown with them but that wasn't the case even though they operate a decently sized hub at Arlanda. I also told my dad I had never been to Denmark even though it's so close to Sweden. We later looked for flights and hotels and booked a short trip to Copenhagen with Norwegian Holidays. There were 6 flights to Copenhagen with Norwegian on this date (28 Oct) and 14 flights with SAS. There was also one flight with Ryanair from Skavsta Airport, that airport is roughly 115 km from our home. Our flight to Copenhagen would be a morning flight, departing at 08:40 AM local time. This would probably be my last trip by plane of the year.
Part 1 - DY3195 ARN-CPH Norwegian Boeing 737-8JP(WL) LN-NGH Delivered Dec 2012 - You are here
Part 2 - DY4154 CPH-ARN Norwegian Boeing 737-8JP(WL) LN-DYG Delivered Dec 2010 - Coming soon
My and my dad left our home at 06:04 AM local time and soon entered the E4 motorway towards Arlanda Airport. It was a rather chilly morning and the sun slowly went up. Only one piece of hand luggage would accompany us on this flight.
The road changes to a 2-lane road for each direction when you approach Arlanda, they should make it a 3-lane road (each direction) until Arlanda Airport at least.
14 minutes passed on the motorway and we took the exit towards Arlanda Airport. We would park our car at the ALFA parking this time.
We arrived at the ALFA parking after a 20-minute quick drive from our home.
We found a spot right next to one of the bus stops in a matter of seconds, normally we have to look around for a few minutes.
Sunrise at 06:30 AM.
One of the free shuttle buses took us to Terminal 5 and we had no bags to drop off, our BPs were issued quickly through these check-in kiosks.
The main FIDS in Terminal 5, I never manage to get decent shots of FIDS' at airports for some reason.
Qatar Airways check-in desks at T5.
SAS check-in desks. The airport seemed rather busy at this time, probably because of school holidays.
We were requested to go through security upstairs like last time, the lines upstairs are usually shorter. Security was very organised and efficient as usual.
Duty-free shopping, almost everything at Arlanda is overpriced and I never buy anything here.
Our flight would depart from gate 15A according to this FIDS found after clearing security.
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View from the windows adjacent to my gate.
Time for some boring spotting at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.
My ride arriving from Copenhagen. LN-NGH delivered in December 2012.
It arrived at the gate at 08:10 AM and would have a 30-minute turnaround before heading back to Copenhagen.
Flight information:
Airline: Norwegian Air Shuttle
Flight number: DY3195
Route: ARN-CPH
Scheduled time of departure: 08:40
Actual time of departure: 08:46
Scheduled time of arrival: 09:50
Actual time of arrival: 09:37
Scheduled flight time: 1h 10 minutes
Actual flight time: 51 minutes
Aircraft and reg: Boeing 737-800 LN-NGH
The gate area.
Shortly afterwards boarding began at 08:20 AM for one of six Norwegian flights heading to Copenhagen on this day.
I made my way into the aircraft and settled down on seat 8F.
Seat pitch was decent for a short flight like this.
Boarding was efficient and the cabin started to fill up rather quickly, the final estimated load factor was at 75%. This particular plane had BSI with these overhead screens.
Overhead bins together with blue lighting.
Boarding was completed fairly quickly and the crew made some final checks before pushing back at 08:35 AM.
The safety video was playing on these overhead screens while we made our way to runway 19R. All of the announcements were made in English and Norwegian or Swedish.
The cabin was dimmed for departure.
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Pushback was done at 08:38 AM, two minutes prior to our scheduled time of departure.
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SAS B738 looking good in the morning sun.
Finnair A321 taxiing out for the second morning departure (AY644) to Helsinki.
Traffic ahead of us.
Holding short of runway 19R.
On runway 19R waiting for take-off clearance.
Blasting out of runway 19R at 08:46 AM.
Schenker logistics AB warehouse visible moments after departure.
The town of Märsta.
Swedish landscape.
The tray table which I wouldn't use on this flight.
The safety card of this B738.
The Norwegian in-flight magazine.
The overpriced menu, I would never buy anything from this menu even though these prices are normal for Scandinavia.
My dad was asleep at this point, or he actually fell asleep once we took off. I was just enjoying the wingview from my seat and at the same time the flight attendants were walking down the aisle asking passengers if they wanted to buy anything. A good amount of passengers ordered coffee. The FAs on this flight were decent, they offered a few smiles here and there and did their job in an efficient manner but nothing more than that.
They played some cartoons on these overhead screens, I remember watching this cartoon before but I don't remember its name.
List of their tail fin heroes.
Norwegian offered free Wi-Fi on this flight (no limit), this is much better than any kind of PTV system IMO. I managed to track my flight, check instagram etc…..
Tracking my own flight through FR24…
Closing in on Denmark.
The Danish city of Helsingør (Helsingör in Swedish). This city is very close to the Swedish city/town of Helsingborg.
Soon after passing Helsingør we initiated our descent into Copenhagen. The captain told us the weather would be pretty good today, mostly sunny.
Landing on runway 04L at Copenhagen Airport Kastrup.
Slowing down.
We had a quick taxi to our gate and I barely managed to get any decent shots.
Arrived at our gate.
Walking through the jetway to the terminal.
We later went to Burger King to have some 'breakfast'.
Taking the Copenhagen Metro to our hotel.
I guess that's it for this FR, thank you for taking your time to read this FR :).
Tourism bonus from Copenhagen:
Spotting bonus from Copenhagen Airport Kastrup, I managed to do some spotting at CPH the day before we left.
KLM B738.
Norwegian B788.
Icelandair B753 arriving from KEF.
TK A321.
SAS A333.
Finnair A320.
SAS A343.
Easyjet A320.
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Another SAS A343.
Singapore Airlines B772.
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SAS A320.
Another Norwegian B788.
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Norwegian B738.
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SAS CRJ-900.
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LH B733 arriving from Frankfurt.
Emirates B77W arriving from Dubai, this daily service will be replaced by a 2-class A380 from December this year.
I really hope to fly on one of these from Stockholm-Arlanda one day, hopefully next year.
See you on the next one :).
Thank you for your great FR!
WiFi on board sounds really nice. How was the internet like? Unfortunately, I couldn't track your flight and it's nice that you could do that on your flight though.
Sad that DY sells overpriced products. The prices on my XQ and 4U were better I think.
Nice spotting pics of CPH!
I think you had a decent experience with DY! I'm looking forward for the second part! :)
Thank you for your comment bro :).
The onboard Wi-Fi was actually pretty good, it was not bad in terms of speed. Don't worry about that, I could still track it myself as you said and take some screenshots via their Wi-Fi :).
Yeah I think the food items were cheaper on those airlines but things are quite expensive here in Scandinavia so I guess the prices were normal for our standards.
Thank you!
Yep you're absolutely right, DY offered a good flight experience for a decent price. Nothing extraordinary but a very punctual flight from point A to point B and I wouldn't hesitate to take them again on these short flights.
See you!
Thanks for sharing this rare report on DY!
I was almost in Copenhagen at the same time :) Your weather looks infinitely better than the weather I had the week after when it was raining everyday. Your bonus looks much nicer than mine will :)
ARN looks a little bit nicer than CPH because it has lighter/brighter colors, not so dreary looking.
Great spotting at both ARN and CPH, always a treat! The DX ATRs are way too colorful for me. I see you also spotted the SK *A livery CRJ. CPH seems to have more diversity in the carriers that operate there.
Beautiful shots of Sweden on take-off. Also of Helsingør and Kastrup on arrival.
DY's product doesn't look that bad. The cabin looks really nice and new. The Recaro seats are standard on almost all carriers nowadays so you can't really complain about that. Seat pitch is okay, but as you said, taking DY to the US might be a little bit more uncomfortable. BOB menus are always overpriced, they have a captive market.
Great spotting bonus at the end, where did you go to spot at CPH?
Thank you for your nice comment :).
Wow, really? Damn, you've been flying a lot recently! I wonder what you flew with to Copenhagen, can't wait to read that FR. Sad to hear that, we are all unlucky with weather every now and then unfortunately :(. The weather also got crappy in Stockholm after I came back home.
Haha I always think ARN is one of the most boring airports I've flown through and very bad looking, maybe because I critisize .
Thank you :). I was quite surprised when I caught that one, I've only tracked those on FR24 before but never seen on of those in person. Yep, CPH has more traffic and is more diverse of course which isn't surprising as it's the leading airport in Scandinavia. I also think I went to the airport when many of the heavies departed or arrived.
Thank you :).
Yeah it's true, those seats are pretty standard now and they're quite decent. I have actually no idea about the pitch in their 788s but they do use these 737s to Dubai, I would never want to be in one of these for 6 hours ARN-DXB! These rides are more than fine on short hops though. Yeah, that's why I usually never purchase anything from any BOB menu.
Thank you once again :). I looked up some spots on www.spotterguide.net and searched for tips for spotting at CPH. There were quite a few spots but I went to a place called Flyvergrillen, it's basically a small restaurant (good for my dad) with a view on top (good for me). You can get there by bus 35 to Københavns Lufthavn (Copenhagen Airport) and get off at a station called 'Tømmerup Stationsvej'. From there it's just a short walk to 'Flyvergrillen'.
Thanks for this new report! Beautiful planespotting on departure! The lighting conditions were really good in the early morning. I really like the Boeing Sky Interior. Overall Norwegian seems like a good value for these short hops. I find Norwegian to be a much more appealing low-cost carrier than Ryanair or Easyjet. Aside from the B.O.B being a bit expensive, which is not surprising since everything is expensive in Scandinavia, everything else looks good. Great aerial shots too; looks like it was a beautiful day to fly. And thanks for the tourist bonus of København and the spotting bonus!
Thank you for your comment :).
Thank you! Glad you liked the spotting shots!
Yep, you're right! Norwegian offered a solid flight-experience on a flight of this length. Great cabin, punctual flight and all that good stuff results in a good experience.
Thank you! It sure was :).
See you!
Thank you very much for sharing this beautiful FR. You are so fortunate to have a dad that can take you to CPH just on the spot and indulge you in your hobby.
Fantastic plane spotting and aerials. You captured some of these shots masterfully and you were lucky to have a sunny day which helped.
ARN airport is well designed and I enjoyed it when I passed through it last year. CPH on the other hand seemed more chaotic in my experience and the day that I left for IST there was a huge backup at the Immigration booths. That is so uncharacteristic of Scandinavian airports.
DY is a low cost carrier and one can more or less know what to expect. They have some great fares from LAX and OAK to Europe and it's good to have it as an option. It would be ideal if they fly out of SFO.
You saw more of CPH than I did. Thanks for sharing this wonderful bonus full of captivating sights. CPH is very compact and convenient to get around. I also found Danes to be very friendly in general and it's easy to strike a conversation with them.
Looking forward to more reports next year.