I slept airside at CPH a few days ago.

I arrived from LHR at 2200 and departed on the 0438 train to Aalborg.

At 2300, there were plenty of people airside, who looked like they were staying the night rather than catching the last flights of the day. They were sleeping on chairs and on the floor around B, C and D gates. The problem is that the lights by the gates stay bright, and also the chairs are mostly not long enough to lie flat. Some people had brought sleeping bags and slept on the floor.

The only place which had dimmed lights was the Transfer Centre. Furthermore, it had comfortable soft chairs where it was possible to lie flat. There were only 4 other people there when I nodded off despite it being very noisy with workers slamming doors and vaccum cleaners. I think the noise stopped by 0100 but I wasn't really disturbed by it and slept very well until 0400. Then it started to get noisy again. I then went for a walk around and the airside area was heaving with people both sleeping and not sleeping. Also, it was relatively warm overnight but I don't know whether it would be cold in winter.

I exited the airside area to catch my train. I was slightly apprehensive in case the route via baggage reclaim was closed (since there were no flights arriving for a few more minutes) but it was not. There were 2 people sleeping in baggage reclaim and some cleaners. No security guards or police/customs officials bothered me on my way out.


If you arrive from Germany, you will arrive into the airside area without security checks or immigration, but you must go landside if you need to pick up luggage.

If you have your onward boarding pass, then you should be able to get back airside before the ~3-hour lull in departing flights (sometimes the last flight is at midnight and sometimes there are departures at 0130 or so).

The problem is that if you need to recheck your luggage, you would need to arrive before the bag drop closes. I guess it may be ok if you arrive by 2300 and you are flying SAS or Norwegian, but for other airlines it depends whether they have any late night departures. Also, SAS should interline to itself. Otherwise, you will need to wait until about 0400.

If you are stuck landside and want to sleep, it isn't very pleasant as I have also experienced this June. I was on a different timezone so I didn't feel like sleeping, which was just as well because it is not possible to lie flat on any of the benches landside (the armrests get in the way and also they are wooden and hard). Everywhere is brightly lit yet also quite cold and there were a surprising number of people arriving all throughout the night (the trains never stop running). Also for some reason, many people were just sitting around from midnight with their bags ready to be dropped off in the morning. Worst of all there were so many familes with young children screaming and running around. I don't know why only 20-30 people were actually attempting to sleep out of the 200-300 people who were landside.

In June it is bright by 0330 which is when I left for a walk around Amager before my flight later in the morning. However in August it doesn't get bright until 0500. I wouldn't do it in winter, but this summer I was quite happy to spend these 2 nights at the airport rather than paying DKK 2000+ to have a hotel room for 3 hours.