Originally Posted by
johan rebel
Is there any difference? I've had a look around downstairs in the Kastrup lounge, looked the same to me. I thought upstairs was just less busy.
That's one thing that doesn't matter for me. I only need a shower when flying from a hot country, or when connecting from a longhaul. In neither instance will I be flying SK.
You don't want to know. Oh, all right then, on AMS-CPH you get to choose between a yucky cookie full of E-numbers, or some pretzly salty things with even more E-numbers. I have never dared try either, but I'm sure they are disgusting.
I have Privium, so can give both the KL and Menzies lounges a wide berth. The CPH SK lounge stands heads and shoulders above the Novia lounge KL pax are condemned to (unless flying in J, in which case one can use CPH Apartment, which is OK).
I don't, really. What's the difference nowadays between Y and J on shorthaul? Not worth getting excited about, except for TK and a few others. Longhaul I fly J.
The purser who had to run back to the front galley a zillion times to swap the tea and coffee pots had to do so because he had a tray with milk and sugar in his left hand, restricting him to one pot in his other hand.
I don't. I fully expect to take a train an hour later, and plan accordingly. However, if I can make the earlier train I get home at least two hours earlier, so it is worth a try. I've become pretty good at racing through the terminal. I think I set a CPH World Record last month: from aircraft door to the train station in three minutes.
Johan
You totally missed out the golden smell that hangs upstairs. It's like a sausage in front of those hungry business class dogs in the lounge downstairs, but or some reason the golden smell disappears as soon as you got the gold card. Very strange...
True about the showers. I don't shower in between short hauls, either. Although it would have been a good idea after dwelling around in a metal festival outfit, for the benefit of all on board.
You're right, I don't want to know about the KL snack. Or, I don't want to know any more than this. Christoph Franz would have said that the snack was significantly enhanced over time.
I haven't used the Novia lounge in ages. Sounds like it isn't much better than it was. I actually tried to compare both airlines' lounges at their home base. In that case I think both are very survivable and both have inferior options on the other airport. As you have Privium: are you Dutch?
You're right about short haul C (or J). Especially with SK there's no difference anymore, except for the noise level of the engines and the chance of having an empty seat next to you (but no guarantee). There aren't many airlines left in Europe where the business class product really makes a difference.
The question is not if they have milk and sugar on board, the question is if they explicitly offer it to you or if it gets within reach to grab something off the small tray (if they're actually holding the tray. Sometimes they have one hand holding a coffee can and one hand for grabbing your cup). As I usually have a window seat (1F is preferred, or 2F is 1F is nonexistent), I somehow always miss out on sugar and milk. And the attendant who goes round with a first or second (IF this even is being done) serving of coffee and tea usually does it at a pace as if he or she suddenly got a case of explosive diarrhea and only sees the toilets in the aft of the plane as point of salvation. Since they started handing out empty cups first, I have already ended up a few times with a still empty cup that was never filled at the end of a flight, a cup of black coffee where I asked for tea or just the sugar and milk but not the coffee...
I have a big respect for your airport running skills. I know CPH and I know how crowded it can be (and how many obstables there are on the way from gates B to the train station). Keep up the good work. And good luck next time.
They are refurbishing the Scandinavian Lounge at OSL now, so everyone has to use the business lounge. As long as the difference isn't huge between the lounges, they don't have to have a dragon to guard the connecting door (even though there is a desk for that). There is a difference, though. The food is better, or at least slightly more upmarket in the *G (Scandinavian lounge), and the drinks are better. There is free hard liquor in the Scandinavian lounge, and better wine (from bottles, usually two red and two white). In the business lounge there is no free liquor, and the wine comes from dispensers, in two varieties: anonymous red and anonymous white.
My experience is that SK respects status when upgrading. I have been upgraded on TP (with partner, EBS) and on LH (once OSL-MUC and once MUC-YUL. LH often gets status level wrong, though: often printing basic status on the boarding cards)
As for tea and coffee, I am always asked whether I want something in mye tea, and am offered a refill 70 % of the time on my usual 50-minute domestic run.
Priority tagging usually means that the luggage is handled so carefully, that it comes out last...
I know we have to share the lounge. I have been affected by it 4 times since they started 2 weeks ago. There has never been a dragon to guard the gold lounge, they usually only have a cave troll at the general lounge entrance: everyone with some sort of lounge access could just enter. I actually have chosen to sit in C lounge with a gold card as they had hot dogs there, which they didn't serve in the gold lounge. I really like the SK loungedogs. I couldn't really find any difference in drink quality, as coffee, tea and coke are pretty much the same. The wines they serve aren't among my favorites. You're absolutely right about the liquor. I just don't drink strong stuff just before a flight (a personal decision, I know).
I have a SEN card with LH that I use for my LH flights, which status is always printed with large friendly letters on my boarding passes. I have never ever been upgraded with them (ok, once, I think, after they completely screwed up my booking and sent me on a horrible rerouting, then one leg was C), despite having made hundreds of flights with them. As said, I saw people being left on the ground as LH refused to upgrade a few pax to C. I even offered them to use a few of my own Senator vouchers once to upgrade myself to C on an overbooked flight (ADD-FRA), but they refused as my booking class was wrong. As a result some pax were refused boarding. It could have been one less. That's one of the things I don't like about LH. For SK, they usually oversee me as EBG while people taking their first flight ever with SK do get upgraded. You can see any FQTV lacking on their boarding pass when it's handed out. If they respected status, I should have been upgraded at least 25 times. I have been upgraded 10% of those cases.
I'm happy to read that there apparently still is staff running around the plane for a second serving or even a first serving. I might just be on a run of bad luck then, as I got served black coffee when asking for tea and sitting in Plus more than once, if I even got anything. That's always quite awkward conversation: "Coffee?" "Tea, please" *attendant grabs my cup, fills it with coffee, hands it over and runs away*. I'll be on 2 SK flights again on Friday, 2 more the Monday thereafter and 3 more 2 days after that (all in seats 1F or 2F), let's see how it goes. Or maybe domestic crews are a bit more service oriented than crews to northern Europe...?
Thanks for the insight on priority luggage. It's very useful. I didn't know that. Next time I find something broken I will really blame myself for doing an extremely lousy, lousy job on packing.