SK689 ARN-LIN 737-800 LN-RRH

The morning of March 1st started with heavy frost and below zero temperatures (again). But I guess this is Sweden and it's still officially Winter.

The airport was busy this morning with long queues at kiosks and bag drops. I found out later it was the middle of Swedish school holidays. I’ve never seen Arlanda like this before, so I went to the Gold check-in desk and there were two people in front of me, both with problems, so it took a bit of time.

One of the best things about Sweden is DAIM chocolate bars. So I bought a bag of DAIM for my family it Italy (another slow queue). At least the express queue at security worked well so I was safely ensconced in the lounge about 30 minutes are arriving at the airport.

The breakfast selection at the SAS lounge is fairly basic but certainly enough to get you started for the day. Usually there is plenty of space in the lounge, but at peak periods it can briefly get quite full. WiFi is simple and works well. SAS advertises the logon details around the lounge rather than keeping them a closely held secret like some places.

At 10am more substantial food offerings were made available. Chicken and rice salad (pretty average) and mushroom soup (excellent) were added to the menu. You need to take care with the beer options. There is both alcohol free and normal beer available and in Sweden it can be very difficult to tell the difference between the two, especially if you leave your reading glasses by your seat.

At the gate passengers seems to be a 50/50 mix of Italian and Swedish (excuse me for the racial profiling here). The mix lead to some interesting variations if queuing practices no doubt frustrating and/or bewildering to both nationalities.

Boarding started a bit later than advertised at 10:55, doors closed at 11:12. Shortly after the Captain announced a delay in loading some heavy items. Push back was at 11:33.

At some remote corner of the airport the Captain parked the plane and announced gate personnel had observed some liquid on the top of the aircraft and engineers would be needed to check it out. Shortly after we were informed that engineers had determined that this aircraft has a black satellite received (rather than white) and this is what the gate personnel had observed.

A quick U-turn and the Captain announced we would fly at maximum possible speed to make up time. We taxied back past T5 at 11:54 and took off at 11:56.

There was lots of legroom in the exit row but the seat was really hard and I got a bad case of numb-bum. Surely all seats can’t be this hard. Maybe next time I cram my 192cm body into a smaller seat for a more comfortable ride.

DAIM was cheaper to buy onboard (60Kr or 2 bags for 99Kr) than at the airport “Duty Free” (65Kr).

Landed 14:20 and luggage arrived at a new record for Italy : 14:33.

The transfer from LIN into Milano Centrale was just outside arrivals (of this small airport). Just fight your way through the taxi touts and give the bus man 5 Euro and the 25 minute ride into town is yours.

SK682 FCO – CPH A321 OY-KBB

Prioritised check-in was available and lounge pass was issued in both our names. We saw another couple where the partner was turned away because their name wasn’t on the invitation. (How does online checkin work??)

The was an Italian beer I hadn’t seen before and it was good. The lounge itself was consistently quite crowded in the room near the entrance door, but further around to the left is another, nice room which was never as full.

Boarding time on our BP was shown as 11:20, but on another BP I saw 10:50. FIDS said 11:00. I won – it started at 11:20 and was complete by 11:37. The flight was full and push back was 11:45 and take off at 11:56.

There was a very nervous flyer in seat 1C and I presume was part of some program because crew took really good care of here and the Captain came out twice to have a little chat. Normal SAS service included tea, coffee, water or BOB. The Captain turned on the smooth landing function of the aircraft (for the nervous flyer I presume) and we barely felt the ground at 13:59. Gate at 14:11

SK1434 CPH – ARN 737-683 LN-RPG

We just had time to visit the lounge in between the last flight and this one. There was a very good thai flavoured soup, rice salad with strips of meat, chips, cookies and lots of bread choices. Beer and wine on-tap were the main let-downs. WiFi was pretty slow, but the lounge was quite busy at that time.

SAS is really great at sending out timely SMS messages as soon as there is a change to boarding time. This happened frequently over these two flights even when changes were just a few minutes.

Boarding started at 15:00 and the flight was nearly full. 2 people behind me both had seat 9C allocated and a spare seat was found for one of them. There was a pilot sitting in a seat next to us. The poor guy looked rather bored with it all.

The Captain advised us the APU wasn’t working so the left motor (I don’t think that’s the exact word he used) would start prior to push back and so it may be a little noisy.

Push back was at 15:20 and take off at 15:32. The 737 had much tighter legroom than the A320. Normal service was provided on this very short flight. Landed 16:28, Gate 16:31 and luggage was available at 16:57 (Milano LIN was quicker!)