Review of Norwegian flight Berlin → Stockholm in Economy

Hello and welcome to this flight report for a Norwegian Flight between Berlin and Stockholm Arlanda on Norwegian Air Shuttle with 2 go arounds performed at ARN before a third successfull landing.

Flight Information

Aircraft : Boeing 737-800
Flight Number : D84506
Registration : SE-RPG
Flight Time : 01:31
Seat : 23F
Departure Gate : Terminal 2 - B32

Airport and security controls

The departure of this flight is form Terminal 2 of BER. No pictures here but an important point : you can access the Terminal 2 also from Terminal 1. So if you booked a "BER Runway" slot for the security controls you'll have to go to terminal 1 and then walk to terminal 2. A ten minutes walk if you don't stop at the Duty Free on the way. BER Runway security slot are indeed only available at terminal 1. 
Another point which I noticed lastly, if you have a Fast Track ticket at the security definitly use it instead of BER Runway since it's much more faster now that the BER Runway has become famous.  

boarding

The gate will be B32 today, at ground level from Terminal like all the gates at this terminal. 

The pre-boarding starts on time and they don't really care about the boarding group or the size / weight of the hand luggages. Once the gate passed we arrive in a second zone where we wait until the passengers have deboarded the plane. I find this always a bit messy since they rush us all in a small area and if you don't go directly to the front you'll be one of the lasts to board the plane, which might be a problem if you have a luggage to put in the overhead lockers. But the good point is that this area (unlike other airports) is full of windows, so it's very good to have a look outside at the planes taking off and landing. 

They eventually open the doors and let us walk towards the airplane. Not the best when it's 31 degrees outside, but the good point is that you get a nice view over the field and of the airplane.  

I walk towards the back door since my seat is 23F today. Arriving on top of the stairs the cabin was not ready, so the cabin crew made us wait a few moments outside. The chance for me to do some pictures before boarding the aircraft. Boarding white Norwegian tail today, no flying head..  

I was the first to board the airplane from the rear door, allowing me to do some picture of the almost empty cabin. I like the atmosphere onboard the Norwegian aircrafts with the blue lights on the ceiling, and the red / grey colors. 

Arriving at my seat it looks pretty standard, nothing special to be mentioned, not really comfortable not really uncomfortable either. It will do the job for this short flight. The seats actually look the same like the Lufthansa seats on their older A320s (not on the Neo ones, which are by the way the worst aircrafts of their fleet regarding leg space. But it's not a Lufthansa report here..), so the leg space here is okay and pretty much the same compared to EasyJet I would say. The seat features the usual tray table, no cup holder and the usual pocket for the magazines and safety card. 
I am a tiny bit annoyed though because I am in the middle of a young students group, some kind of class trip or something and they are pretty loud.. Let's hope they'll put their headphones on during the flight. 

Before pushback I take a look at the seat pocket and it contains the inflight menu, the safety card and another card explaining how to connect to the wifi. Here again every company with this features does it a different way.. So pretty usefull to help to connect. 

pushback and takeoff

Boarding is now completed, we are on time and ready to go. The pilots makes the welcome announcement and then informs us that some passengers didn't show up to the boarding gate, but they had checked in luggages. So the ground staff needs to look for their bags and take them out of the plane before we can leave. A bit unfortunate but I hope they'll find them at the carrousel… 

While we wait it's the turn of the cabin manager to welcome us onboard, informing us at the same time that the use of power banks is not allowed on board Norwegian. I am quite surprised here and it's I think the first company I fly on which doesn't allow their use. To be honest as my battery was full I didn't really check if the seats provides as usb socket for the recharging of electronic devices.. I was just surprised about the fact that the use of power banks is not allowed. 

They are still looking for the luggages of the missing passengers but the crew already start with the safety demo. It's pretty much always the same but I like to see how every company puts a "personal touch" to it. Usually the difference is when they present the emergency exists. Easyjet points to the closest exit, Ryanair crew present each and every exit (the famous "one left and one right"), while Norwegian starts from the back to the front. 

At 16:10 with a short 15 minutes delay we push back from the gate and after a short 5 minutes taxi we take off towards the east on runway 07L at 16:19 a little bit behind schedule.  

Flight

Just after take off I connect to the wifi and unlike what I remember from before, the wifi is now only free for 15 minutes. Back 5 or 6 years ago I flew with them and they had free wifi for messaging. Norwegian was one of the first European carriers to provide this service. Now I guess to earn some more money, you have to pay for it..  Or due to covid since they went through some turbulences through the pandemic making them drastically reduce their fleet and stopping their long haul flights. A pity from my opinion because this was one of the very good point flying Norwegian. But it still offers a free flight tracker (with zoom in and out feature) which gives infos about the remaining flight time and so on. Better than nothing ! And actually I prefer this card compared to the easyJet one. 

While the cabin crew pass with their inflight service I decide to go for a coffee (unfortunately I don't remember the price I paid), Norwegian offers Starbuck's onboard their fleet with the original Starbuck's cup. 

Nothing really special for the remaining part of the flight, there is only one service for this flight and at 17:10 after 50 minutes flight we start the descent towards Arlanda Airport 
 

Landing

While we are 5 minutes away from landing, already flaps down (but not yet gear down), and I guess already aligned on the ILS the pilots makes a first go around and a sharp left turn towards the west. At first no info from anyone, neither cabin crew or pilots, but I guess they first have to organize a new approach before informing the passengers. But while we make the turn I can see the airplane aligned before us also making a go around but turning towards the east. 

Just after this turn the pilots informs us that they had to go around due to an ongoing runway inspection, so it was not free to allow planes to land. We were still far from the runway (as you can see on the pictures and on the flight radar screen shot), and another plane was aligned before us. So i wondered why they didn't let us go further and just making the first plane to go around. 

So after the first attempt we align ourselves again on the runway but here again shortly before landing, another go around. This time we turn towards the east. This allows me to do some nice pictures over the Stockholm area. 

So now it's the first try and we finally manage to land but this time on the parallel runway. Unfortunately I won't find out what was ongoing on the runway where we were supposed to land originally. May be a bird strike from another plane or some animals on the runway. You will find below the flight radar screenshot of our arrival route. 

At 17:50 with some delay due to these 2 go arounds we arrive at the gate with a Jetbridge this time. But in order to speed the deboarding process they also allow passengers to leave the aircraft from the rear door which i will use.  

That's all for this short flight report between Berlin and Stockholm ! Thanks for reading me :)