Flight Report
SK 1501 Copenhagen - London Heathrow

21 June 2024
20:40 - 21:40

Searching for a getaway on the continent that has promising weather, I narrowed down my choices to Sweden and Italy. It was a difficult choice between Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Venice, because Venice is incredibly crowded as summer approaches and a decent hotel is hard to come by. Meanwhile, Sweden is enjoying a cool summer, and with far less tourists, it's a more relaxed getaway.

In the end, Sweden won with 2 days in Gothenburg followed by 3 in Stockholm.

I had initially arrived in Gothenburg from London 4 days earlier with a BA redemption at a fairly bargain basement price of 9250 avios.

BA didn't offer redemption seats for the return leg from Stockholm though, but only Gothenburg was available, but I didn't want to pay extra to take the 3 hour high-speed train back from Stockholm. Instead, I found a cheap one-way flight on SAS for about 75 pounds (fare is about 30 pounds and the rest are taxes and fees), but with a transfer in Copenhagen. It would be a very budget-friendly trip after all.

I had just arrived from Stockholm on SAS. With a same airline connection, it was a fairly seamless transfer here in Copenhagen although it was a long walk through the busy terminal.

Copenhagen's airport is quite pretty with many restaurant choices. The shops are nicely designed and not the factory cookie-cutter styles. I suppose flying in Europe is now low-cost all the way with no free meals on board, so they need to provision the airports with enough food for hungry passengers to eat before their flights. I've been quite spoiled in Asia over the years where I never had to think about eating in the terminal and would expect a hot rice dish even for really short flights of an hour only.

I couldn't find a place to sit down and didn't have much mood to find a restaurant to have dinner part 2. However, I did enjoy scanning the food offerings with lots of open sandwiches - various toppings on bread.

Overall prices in Denmark are quite shocking, and it's not because I'm at the airport. It seems more expensive here than even London.

As my next flight would be to London, I had to pass through immigration and the terminal quieted down significantly afterwards. From hereon, we have a mix of low ceiling old dingy building and a seemingly modern extension at the end that had nicer seating areas. Welcome to the C gates.

Finding a charge port was fairly difficult and I eventually found a work desk to juice up my phone. There were also no water dispensers everywhere and I felt odd to fill up my bottle in the bathroom sink. This is probably my least liked smaller airport to transit through.

Nevertheless, I made the best of what I've got and enjoyed some plane spotting.

Boarding is a 2 step process where you line up to get into the gate first, then enter into a holding pen, then onto the jet bridge. There are bathrooms inside the pen and enough seats for us all. Boarding started with groups 1 and 2 then everyone else in dramatic fashion.

I settled into my window seat and with not much else to do in the meantime, browsed the reading materials and for-purchase menu.

The light meal options don't look very appealing and those open sandwiches in the terminal were much more attractive to spend my money on.

We departed at 8:58pm, taking off into the clouds with Malmo in the distance.

There wasn't much turbulence on departur eand the flight was uneventful, with the sun starting to set as we crossed the English Channel and I was a bit worried my Central London views on final approach would not be too good. With a right window specifically chosen for this reason, I hoped for the best ...

Welcome to London. The approach into Heathrow from the east is spectacular, and I try to secure a right window seat every time hoping for these views.

We landed ahead of schedule and completed the flight at 9:31pm.

Luckily, the immigration queues at Terminal 2 were not too bad and I exited to the baggage belt a little over half an hour later.

Terminal 2 is a Star Alliance hub and typical of Heathrow, there is a huge variety of airlines from that group to occupy it.

SAS brought me back to London with no delays and at a great price. I don't have much expectations for the service given nearly everything is for purchase these days, so as long as I get to where I need to safely and timely, I'll be a happy customer. Both Stockholm Arlanda and Copenhagen are nice airports but Copenhagen is way too crowded for me to consider transiting there again. My favourite airport in this part of Europe is still Helsinki!