AAR to CPH CityJet opf SAS Economy

Airline:  Cityjet for SAS

Flight #: SK1248

Route:    AAR-CPH

Class:    Economy

Seat:     11A

Date:     Tuesday 29^th August 2023

Having been abandoned at Aarhus airport by Ryanair (read about that here), I had booked myself some alternative flights home and had stayed the night at the airport hotel. The following morning, I made the 20 second walk from my room back down to the check-in area, and checked myself in at one of the kiosks for the three legs of my journey home.

Heading through the deserted security lane I was through even quicker than the day before, managing to get through in just a coupe of minutes. Having explore the duty free in detail the day before I headed straight through and upstairs to the restaurant to grab a breakfast of Danish pastries (which aren’t from Denmark…) and some coffee.

I settled down in the upstairs seating area which was much quieter than downstairs (although the airport was fairly quiet) and watched the earlier Copenhagen flight depart. I had tried to get on this earlier flight as it was only 45-mintues earlier but would have given me a more robust connection at Copenhagen, however I couldn’t seem to select it as an option on the SAS website so I assume it was fully booked. I’d have also preferred the journey on an ATR compare to the CRJ that I was booked on.

As the ATR departed, my CRJ900 arrived from Oslo and taxied to stand so I headed down to Gate 2 to get ready to board. EI-FPU, a five-year-old aircraft, was the aircraft for my flight, having been delivered to in October 2017. The aircraft was actually operated by Cityjet on behalf of SAS, with a large number of SAS’ regional flights operated by the Irish airline. It had worked the last flight of the previous day from Copenhagen to Aarhus before parking up overnight and then operating the morning return flight from Aarhus to Oslo and back.

Boarding was uneventful and completed by 0958 and the 88 seat CRJ900 was pretty full for the short 25-minute flight to Copenhagen. I had a couple of minutes to review the cabin and it was pretty much on par to larger aircraft although a little bit more cramped. Seats were in a 2-2 configuration, although rows 1 & 2 were 2-0 with there also being no row 13 onboard. The first few rows were reserved for Business class and had some extra leg room but for a flight of under half an hour, the leg room in Economy was fine.

The door was closed at 1002 and at 1005 we were pushing back for the short taxi to the runway. Whilst our taxi seemed to be along a parallel taxiway it turned out it was actually along the secondary runway 10L/28R. Turning onto runway 10R, we took off at 1012 and took a right turn almost immediately to take us south-east over the coast.

What surprised me on this flight was as soon as the flight attendants got the all clear from the flight deck, they began an onboard service of tea or coffee. Making the mistake of having a coffee, I had to use the air vent to cool it down a bit so I could drink it quickly as the 10 minutes to landing announcement was made just eight minutes after take-off. Given on some ‘full service’ airlines you don’t get anything for free these days, the fact SAS served tea and coffee on a really short flight was definitely a plus for them.

We looped around the north edge of the city of Copenhagen itself before making a right turn over the Øresund, the body of water that separates Denmark and Sweden. As we lined up for final approach, I was able to see the famous Øresund Bridge which combined with Drogden Tunnel connect the two Scandinavian countries. The Øresund bridge is in fact the longest in Europe that carries both road and rail, clocking in at nearly eight kilometres long!

At 1034, just 22 minutes after taking off from Aarhus, we landed on Copenhagen’s runway 22L and with some heavy braking made a quick exit from the runway towards the terminals. We were on stand five minutes later and at 1041, with just 64 minutes until my next flight, the doors opened and we exited onto the tarmac before using the jet bridge steps to enter the terminal.

At just 22 minutes flight time and 39 minutes from doors closed to doors open this was definitely my shortest flight to date. Despite the brevity, my first impressions of SAS were good, especially with there being onboard service, however basic, despite the challenges of the short flight. With two more SAS flights that day, I was going to get a good overview of the Scandinavian airline, but first I needed to find the gate for my second flight.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food               3*

Service             5*

Punctuality         4*

Overall Rating      15/25 (read about my rating system here!)