Part 1: Bucharest (OTP) to Oslo Torp (TRF) on Wizzair
Bucharest (OTP) 06:15 – Oslo Sandefjord Torp (TRF) 08:35
Airbus A321-231 (HA-LXD), Seat 10F

As I wrote in the introductionary part, my journey required a positioning flight to Norway to start the trip. Salvation came with a 10 EUR ticket on Eastern Europe's favourite low cost airline, Wizzair. Yes, it's absolutely no-frills, but then again, it brings you to your destination for Ryanair-like prices but with a much better service and much more reliability. And to be honest, if paying out of my own money, I don't see any reason why I would pay 150 EUR more for a seat on a legacy carrier in Y or even more in J for the crap eurobusiness product for a flight which is only two or three hours. Better to save the money, and spend on some nice food or a nice hotel instead!

The schedule was great too of the Wizzair flight – it would get me into Norway on early Friday morning, leaving two full days for sightseeing (one in Oslo, one in Stavanger) before catching my Sunday morning flight to start the real adventure.

The 06:15 departure time was however brutal and required me to take an Uber to the airport at 04:00. Wizzair warned in a communique to all pax to arrive 3 hours prior to the flight if checking baggage due to big queues at OTP. And from my previous experiences at my home airport, the morning rush hour (W6, RO, FR, 0B use it as a hub, while several other airlines such as KL, LH etc. have aeroplanes parked overnight to allow an early morning departure) can indeed be madness. Of course, when I arrived there was barely a soul to see and within 10 minutes I was sitting at my favourite OTP bar for a much-needed coffee. Why can't the airport get its act together? Today there were more than enough baggage control devices open, as well as passport booths. But I have been caught out once by arriving too late, and with barely any station open to process baggage check/passports, and missing my flight. It seems like the OTP management is more interested in holidaying in far-flung destinations on “business trips” than in actually improving the airport.


One of the two security/luggage check areas at OTP – picture taken during another trip at a much busier hour


Coffee at one of the cafes in the terminal - lounges s*ck big time at OTP and unless it's a FF perk or you absolutely love dry cookies, it's not worth the effort!


Today's (bus) gate..

Even though I paid only 10 EUR for the flight, I opted for 35 EUR more a few days before departing to buy priority boarding and seat reservation. At such an early departure with very little sleep, I just need a window seat (which anyway I prefer above an aisle seat). The risk of automatically be assigned a middle seat is just too great and could be catastrophical on such an early departure. At least with a window seat, you can rest your head against the wall of the plane. Priority boarding with Wizzair is not only nice as you are assured of enough space to store your luggage – it gives you the privilege as well to take two hand luggage items instead of one. As the rest of the trip would be in business class and already included two pieces of hand luggage, it meant I could forego about checked baggage entirely, saving valuable time during the rest of my trip.

Even though Wizzair's A320 aeroplanes (the bulk of their fleet) are fairly comfortable for a LCC, I absolutely detest the A321. Bad seats, much less leg space, and a few dozen more pax, making boarding and arrival a pain in the ... (it makes a difference if there are 230 queuing for passport control or just 160..)


Meeh


Aaargh


Aaaaaargh! At least it only cost me 10 EUR for the seat and flight...

Due to the boarding madness of hundreds of gate lice (of whom I expect only half ever took a flight before), the flight only took off at 6.29am, almost 15 minutes later than planned. As always, an interesting mix of passengers. Norwegian and Romanian businessmen (fine), Romanian migrants (fine - with expats/migrants being a mainstay of Wizzair's success), but also so many unseasoned travellers and Roma (gypsies) bringing there entire household alone... never experienced that on a flight!

Somehow, I wasn't tired.t all and didn't sleep - which was a good thing as the views to the East were breathtaking. Trust me on this, below pics don't do justice at all to what was in my opinion the most breathtaking sunrise I have ever seen in a plane. Unfortunately, the dirty window made for some horrible pictures only...


View just after take-off from OTP[/I}


Sunset somewhere above Europe


Can't ever get enough of sunrise/sunset colours..


On approach to snowy Norwegian viking lands

The pilots however managed to undo the delay we accumulated during boarding, arriving at 8.09am local time, a good 15 minutes early. Great views of snowy Norway on arrival!







Even though called "Oslo" Sandefjord Torp airport, the airport is still located a good 110 kilometres from Oslo's city centre. Except for the odd KLM flight, it's used primarily by LCC such as Wideroe, Norwegian, Ryanair and Wizzair. Passport control was fast, the people were friendly, and the airport looked very clean and neat. Interesting fact: during landing I saw an armada of snow-shoveling equipment: why don't airports like AMS or LHR have even half of this, if already an airport like Torp has that many?