I recently had the dubious pleasure of flying from Copenhagen to Birmingham International with the SAS.
I hate flying. There is not one thing about the experience that I enjoy. I do everything I can to avoid flying - I will spend hours on trains, smelly buses or vomit inducing ferries if it means I don't have to fly. Hwoever, when my boyfriend insisted that we get back to the UK for a football match and all my best arguments failed to convince him otherwise. I had concocted a piece of time-tabling genius that would have allowed us to get from Denmark to the UK by train - but the connection from Norway to Denmark didn't allow this (a word of advice - never trust the Swedish rail system - they are worse than ours re: reliability). So, I was presented with no escape.
We bought our tickets with 20 minutes to go before take off on what was already a delayed flight. This delay served us well - it meant cheap tickets. The gentleman at the purchase desk was friendly. As was the lovely man at check in. However, once aboard the plane the story was a little different.
It's only a short flight - 1hour 40mins. The passenger area of the plane is no wider than a train carriage and 3 seats are crammed together, then an aisle that isn't even large enough to accommodate the slim, scandinavian air hostesses without causing them to knock you around the head with their elbows - then another 3 seats. It was packed, hot and dark. The best newspaper they had on offer was the Mail. I took a copy and quickly realised why they had chosen a tabloid - there was barely space enough to read that, nevermind a quality paper.
Take off was fine - objectively. I had a hiddeous time - I was suffering from a cold and felt like my sinuses would explode. I also suffer from vertigo - so every aspect of flying is totally horrible for me. The air hostesses were utterly disagreable. There were 3 of them - each less pleasant than the next - well, that's maybe a bit unfair - one of them was actually human and smiled - the other two were far from friendly. As a young woman in considerable discomfort I was not impressed when they chastised me for not pulling down the table in front of me so that they could place my food upon it. Although - I must say that the food they provide (cold meats etc. In my case salmon with a potatoe salad underneath and a little bowl of a chicken pasta thingy) is excellent - but the way it is thrown at you is not! First class is clearly the way to go. The smiles quickly faded from the faces of the hostesses when they turned back to Economy class!
I am biased when it comes to flying. I have never enjoyed a flight in my life. This flight was no exception. It was late in taking off. The service on board from unpleasant. The cramped conditions were awful. That said - from what I can gather - that's what you should expect when you fly standard class - so I suppose, when put into perspective - they weren't so bad.
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Entertaining op, but in response to the question how do they cater for disabled you've replied 'not at all'. In SAS's defence I've flown to Sweden and back with seven wheelchair users and their help in transferring us from our international flight to the internal one was excellent.
MichelleScott 24.09.2001 23:28
Well-written and entertaining op. I agree with you about flying. The whole experience seems to be designed to be as depressing as possible. I'd rather walk.
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JVL 22.04.2008 (22.04.2008)
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