CPH-OSL on SAS...take-off cam!
Cafe' Latte at Copenhagen Airport (CPH)
This is a different trip to Europe for me, from a travel perspective. Usually, I'll come over for 2-3 weeks, teaching in different cities. This time, I started in The Netherlands, then Copenhagen. Now I'm off to Oslo, but I'll return to Copenhagen forbanother weeknthere, then head home.
Since the flights here in Europe are to Scandinavian cities, I'm flying SAS. I can get directbflights that are cheaper than Delta's partners, KLM and Air France.
Copenhagen Airport (CPH) is modern and easy to navigate. Rental car pickup and return is in a parking garage about 100 metres from the terminal. The Avis staff here are friendly and efficient. SAS is the dominant airline (like American at DFW or Delta at Atlanta), so the check-in lines can get long. On a Sunday morning, this wasn't a big deal, but CPH can be a hot mess on a Saturday.
There's no passport control on flights from CPH that are within the EU. If you're traveling to the US or other countries outside the EU, you'll have to clear passport control. Danish airport security is efficient and courteous. Amazing how security people outside the US don't feel the need to yell at you and belittle you as you weave through their system.
Once you've cleared security, CPH is a typical airport. Food, drink, coffee, duty-free, lots of other shops. Not as extensive of shopping as Amsterdam's Schipohl, but still, some interesting thing.
I stopped for a cafe' latte and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi offered by the airport. When I'm traveling Delta or KLM, I'll go to the KLM club upstairs.
CPH has an unusual boarding procedure. You stand outside the gate area until the agent calls the flight. You then present your boarding pass and passport. Then you wait 10 minutes or so inside the gate house itself. The gate agent throws open the doors of the jetway, and in you go, no ceremony. Again, it was an intra-EU flight, so that's always got less ceremony than even a domestic US flight.
The aircraft for the flight was an Airbus 321. It's about the size of a B757. I was in 8C, where six rows were set up as First class. I was fortunate to have the row to myself - nobody in 8A or 8B!
This A321 had an interesting feature - cockpit cam! After the safety video, as the plane taxied to the runway, the pilot switched on a forward-looking camera, so the monitors throughout the cabin displayed what he saw. Fascinating. That cam continued until we were up in the air, then it switched to a cam on the bottom of the aircraft! Wonderfully fun to pass the time, more so even than the in-flight map tracker you find on Delta flights.
The only downside to any SAS flight is the nickel-and-dime policies on food and drink. DK30 for a coke? That's between US$3 and US$4. Even a cup of tea is DK20. It just seems so silly.
Copenhagen-to-Oslo is a one-hour flight. The landing, viewed through the external cameras was as much fun as takeoff. Gardermoen Airport is easy to get through, again, since the flight originated inside the EU. No passport control. There's a big duty-free with good prices on wine, so I picked up a bottle there for later this week, while waiting for the luggage to come in. Once I had my bag, it was “nothing to declare” and out into arrivals.
Once in the “outside” part of the airport, I made my way to the train platforms and took the Airport Express train to the National Theater stop. More on the trains in Oslo in a future article.
Overall, this was a pleasant and entertaining flight.