Mom Trip to Europe Pt. 4: British Airways Economy Copenhagen to London
Feb 19, 2019, 2:36 pm
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Join Date: Oct 2016
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Mom Trip to Europe Pt. 4: British Airways Economy Copenhagen to London
I am in the process of starting a travel blog Happy Wallet Adventures, where we focus on how to live your travel dreams on the cheap. On our most recent trip our wife and I took our mothers to Europe. Her mom always wanted to travel but as a single mother she was never able to afford it. So we figured it would be a great gift to use some of my points bank to take her to Europe. This trip started with us visiting Colmar France, taking a bus up to frankfurt for the day, then taking a train to Berlin. We spent 3 days in berlin before flying off to Copenhagen. After two days in Copenhagen it was time to head home.
As I am new to blogging, or writing trip reports in general I would love any feedback you could provide! I will only be posting the flight reports on here, if you are interested in what we did, where we stayed, and where we ate. Please visit my the trip report page which will I will be updating a post a day once all the flight reviews are completed.
Part 1: Delta Economy Seattle to Amsterdam
Part 2: KLM Economy Amsterdam to Basel
Part 3: EasyJet Berlin to Copenhagen
Date: February 12, 2018
Flight: BA 811
Route: CPH to LHR
Class: Euro Traveler (Economy)
Equipment. Airbus 320
Our Moms Trip to Europe was coming to an end and it was time to say goodbye. It was an absolutely amazing trip. We explored both the alternative and historical berlin. We had Smørrebrød and hot dogs in denmark. Most importantly we learned Stephanie's mom is totally a spy. But all good things must come to an end. So it was time to find our way to the Copenhagen Airport and board our flight on British Airways Economy from Copenhagen to London.
Our moms were taking a different flight home than Stephanie and me. As they were headed to Florida, they took a KLM flight and connected through Amsterdam to a Delta flight. Their flight departed at 6:05am. Another early morning flight, clearly I must hate myself of something. The goal was to get to the airport 2 1/2 hours early. Normally it is pretty easy to get to CPH from the city using public transportation. You just hop on the Copenhagen metro and ride the M2 to its final stop at the airport. Of course that is assuming the metro is functions properly. You know, Copenhagen Metro haha!
When we arrived at the metro station the next train was about 7 minutes away. Then 15 minutes passed. Somehow the train to the airport is still 7 minutes away. After several announcements in Danish, the people around us start murmuring. Eventually, someone translates the message to english. There was an issue with one of the tracks, so both directions have to utilize the same track. The next train to the airport was now 20 minutes away. 30 more minutes roll by and we start to get nervous. It is 4:00 and I am sick of cutting it close. This was a theme of the trip. We decide to leave the station and immediately found a cab. It is about a 12 minute ride to the airport from the city... we should have started with a cab.
We ended up second in line at priority check-in. So we were feeling good about making it to our moms to say goodbye... I think you can see where this is leading. Unfortunately, there were a lot of issues with the people in line in front of us' tickets. Their check in took a solid 10 minutes, and when we started our check-in they jumped back in front of to ask for wheelchair assistance to the gate. While oridinarily this wouldn't be a huge issue the check-in agent was not able to get ahold of airport services. It took another 5-10 minutes to get this arranged before she could continue checking us in.
By the time our check-in was complete our Mom's flight was leaving in 40 minutes. We booked it through security (luckily there was no line) and went as fast as we could to their gate. Sadly, we got to the gate just in time to see the last people walk onto the plane. We stood at the gate sadly watching their plane back away from the gate, never getting a chance to say goodbye to our moms.
After a little bit of rest it was time to head to our boarding gate. It is a relatively long walk from the Atelier lounge to the C-Gates in the Copenhagen Airport, and you should try and give yourself at least 20-30 minutes as you will need to clear customs. We got to the boarding gate right as boarding was about to start. We boarded in group 4. I was a bit surprised by this as our booking was a first class booking, I assumed we would get priority boarding, but no such luck. Like on our EasyJet it really wouldn't have mattered anyway. Our flight departed from a remote stand, so everyone had to take a bus to the plane.
As the Airbus 320 is one of British Airways' smaller planes and flight was not completely full, boarding went pretty smoothly. Everyone was up the stairs and on the plane in less than 10 minutes.
British Airways sets up their A320 in a 3-3 configuration. Each seat has 30 inches of pitch and is 17 inches wide. This is a pretty tight fit, but on flight that is about 2 hour it isn't too bad. The plane and the seats themselves were in very good shape and showed no sign of wear. They were nicely cushioned and kept me comfortable for the entire flight.
Unfortunately this plane did not have any wifi or in-flight entertainment to speak off. This means that I they left me to my own devices to figure out what to do for two hours. Of course at 7am that meant I was going to sleep.
The flight itself, like all my flights on this trip, went pretty smoothly. After we boarded the Pilot announced a slight delay. As it was extremely cold the night before in Copenhagen, the wings needed to be deiced. This process took about 20 minutes, and we were wheels up about 20 minutes late. There was no turbulence to speak of and either we made good time or BA does a great job padding its arrival times (probably a combination of both) as we actually ended up landing about 10 minutes early and I got some decent pictures heading into london. We landed at a remote gate and it took us a quick 5 minute bus ride to get to T-5.
As I am new to blogging, or writing trip reports in general I would love any feedback you could provide! I will only be posting the flight reports on here, if you are interested in what we did, where we stayed, and where we ate. Please visit my the trip report page which will I will be updating a post a day once all the flight reviews are completed.
Part 1: Delta Economy Seattle to Amsterdam
Part 2: KLM Economy Amsterdam to Basel
Part 3: EasyJet Berlin to Copenhagen
Date: February 12, 2018
Flight: BA 811
Route: CPH to LHR
Class: Euro Traveler (Economy)
Equipment. Airbus 320
Our Moms Trip to Europe was coming to an end and it was time to say goodbye. It was an absolutely amazing trip. We explored both the alternative and historical berlin. We had Smørrebrød and hot dogs in denmark. Most importantly we learned Stephanie's mom is totally a spy. But all good things must come to an end. So it was time to find our way to the Copenhagen Airport and board our flight on British Airways Economy from Copenhagen to London.
Getting to the Airport (Copenhagen Metro Haha!)
On our walking tour of Copenhagen our guide told us that one of the questions on her tour guide exam was "When will the Copenhagen Metro be completed?" There were three choices that were dates, and the last answer was "Copenhagen Metro haha!" We have first hand experience why Copenhagen Metro Haha is correct answer.Our moms were taking a different flight home than Stephanie and me. As they were headed to Florida, they took a KLM flight and connected through Amsterdam to a Delta flight. Their flight departed at 6:05am. Another early morning flight, clearly I must hate myself of something. The goal was to get to the airport 2 1/2 hours early. Normally it is pretty easy to get to CPH from the city using public transportation. You just hop on the Copenhagen metro and ride the M2 to its final stop at the airport. Of course that is assuming the metro is functions properly. You know, Copenhagen Metro haha!
When we arrived at the metro station the next train was about 7 minutes away. Then 15 minutes passed. Somehow the train to the airport is still 7 minutes away. After several announcements in Danish, the people around us start murmuring. Eventually, someone translates the message to english. There was an issue with one of the tracks, so both directions have to utilize the same track. The next train to the airport was now 20 minutes away. 30 more minutes roll by and we start to get nervous. It is 4:00 and I am sick of cutting it close. This was a theme of the trip. We decide to leave the station and immediately found a cab. It is about a 12 minute ride to the airport from the city... we should have started with a cab.
Check-In
We ended up getting to the airport about 2 1/2 hours early for our flight, 1 1/2 hours early for our Moms' flight. We helped them get checked in and told them to head through security and we would meet them at their gate. The plan was use the self-service kiosk and meet up with our moms to say goodbye. Of course all good plans go awry. British Airways was not doing self-service check-in at Copenhagen Airport. So we had to wait until 2 hours before our flight when check-in opened. Damn. As we were flying first class on our London to Seattle leg, we utilized the priority check-in lane.We ended up second in line at priority check-in. So we were feeling good about making it to our moms to say goodbye... I think you can see where this is leading. Unfortunately, there were a lot of issues with the people in line in front of us' tickets. Their check in took a solid 10 minutes, and when we started our check-in they jumped back in front of to ask for wheelchair assistance to the gate. While oridinarily this wouldn't be a huge issue the check-in agent was not able to get ahold of airport services. It took another 5-10 minutes to get this arranged before she could continue checking us in.
By the time our check-in was complete our Mom's flight was leaving in 40 minutes. We booked it through security (luckily there was no line) and went as fast as we could to their gate. Sadly, we got to the gate just in time to see the last people walk onto the plane. We stood at the gate sadly watching their plane back away from the gate, never getting a chance to say goodbye to our moms.
Boarding
After we got over missing saying by to our moms, we spent some time at Atelier - The Colorful Aviator Lounge. .After a little bit of rest it was time to head to our boarding gate. It is a relatively long walk from the Atelier lounge to the C-Gates in the Copenhagen Airport, and you should try and give yourself at least 20-30 minutes as you will need to clear customs. We got to the boarding gate right as boarding was about to start. We boarded in group 4. I was a bit surprised by this as our booking was a first class booking, I assumed we would get priority boarding, but no such luck. Like on our EasyJet it really wouldn't have mattered anyway. Our flight departed from a remote stand, so everyone had to take a bus to the plane.
As the Airbus 320 is one of British Airways' smaller planes and flight was not completely full, boarding went pretty smoothly. Everyone was up the stairs and on the plane in less than 10 minutes.
The Plane/Seats
Depending on the day you could fly on either BA's A319, A320, or A321. These mid-sized jets are typically used for flights within Europe. The A-320 we flew on seats just below 150 people. This is a standard "Europe" layout. So there is no difference in size between a business class seat and an economy seat. The only difference between business and economy is in business (Club Europe) the middle seat is blocked out. Luckily for us our middle seat remained empty so we saved some points by flying economy on this leg.
British Airways sets up their A320 in a 3-3 configuration. Each seat has 30 inches of pitch and is 17 inches wide. This is a pretty tight fit, but on flight that is about 2 hour it isn't too bad. The plane and the seats themselves were in very good shape and showed no sign of wear. They were nicely cushioned and kept me comfortable for the entire flight.
Unfortunately this plane did not have any wifi or in-flight entertainment to speak off. This means that I they left me to my own devices to figure out what to do for two hours. Of course at 7am that meant I was going to sleep.
Service/Flight
On short-haul flights like this British Airways has become no better than EasyJet or RyanAir. British Airways does not provide complimentary food or drinks in its Europe Traveler Class (Economy) on flights within Europe. Everything including water is for purchase. Prices on their menus do not seem wholly unreasonable, but at minimum at least a drink should be free. Heck, all of the major US airlines offer you a complementary soda. (Well except united if you are on the terrible flight I took from SFO to SEA). Given that there was no service provided, I did not see the point in staying away past take-off.The flight itself, like all my flights on this trip, went pretty smoothly. After we boarded the Pilot announced a slight delay. As it was extremely cold the night before in Copenhagen, the wings needed to be deiced. This process took about 20 minutes, and we were wheels up about 20 minutes late. There was no turbulence to speak of and either we made good time or BA does a great job padding its arrival times (probably a combination of both) as we actually ended up landing about 10 minutes early and I got some decent pictures heading into london. We landed at a remote gate and it took us a quick 5 minute bus ride to get to T-5.
