I haven’t written a trip report in over four years and since I read a lot of them here on A.net I thought it would be nice to share my last flight experience.

In early May I saw an on-line ad from a travel agency called Supersavertravel.se and they had a campaign where they sold return tickets from Stockholm to Newark with Malaysia Airlines for only 2.495 SEK (USD 320) and that really caught my interest. So after talking to a friend about it we booked tickets for mid-August. I was really looking forward to flying with Malaysia Airlines since I’ve heard that they are famous for their service. MH alters between the B777-200/ER and B747-400 on this route and when I got the booking confirmation I found out that we got the Jumbo.

We live in the southwest of Sweden and needed a cheap and easy way to get to Stockholm for the flight west. We looked at train tickets but they were kind of expensive plus it takes like 4-6 hours to get to STHLM and we were gonnna have to be at the airport early in the morning because the flight departures at 7:45 am. And I didn’t really feel like spending the night on a bench in the departure hall.
Then I remembered that we had some Eurobonus points from previous trips to Thailand and the US with Scandinavian and United, so we used our EB-pionts on a Scandinavian Airlines flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm and back plus a stay at the Radisson Blu Sky City Hotel at Arlanda Airport.

22 hours prior to departure Scandinavian starts e-check-in on most flights. On the afternoon the day before the flight, while packing my bag, I got a txt that said check-in has started. I got online, checked in and also reserved my seat, 9A and also printed out my boarding pass.


Entrance to Gothenburg Landvetter Airport

We arrived at GOT around noon and tried to get on an earlier flight to ARN, but all SK flights that day was full so we had to wait for two and a half hours for the flight we were booked on. Since we already were checked in had our boarding passes we got our luggage tags from the self service kiosks and then walked over to the Scandinavian check-in counter to drop off our luggage and get our finger prints registered. It was optional to register your finger print but it came in handy when it was time for boarding.


Sandinavian self service

The domestic terminal at GOT doesn’t really offer a lot of thing to do. I spent the time drinking coffee (lots of coffee), reading newspapers and watched the occasional take-offs and landings on runway 21.


View of the domestic terminal


Iceland Express B737-700 to Keflavik


Emirates B747-4HAF/ER/SCD to Dubai


Bergfora Viking taxiing to the gate

The plane arrived about 20 minutes late from some Mediterranean charter destination and the passengers were bussed to the international terminal. Now the plane had to be prepared for the next flight, this meant that we’re gonna be late. Looking around the departure hall you could see that the flight was going to be full. I think the Scandinavian B738s take 186 passengers, not bad for a Swedish domestic flight on a Sunday afternoon.

GOT-ARN Aug 16
Scandinavian 154
Scheduled 14.50-15.45 (0.55)
Actual 15.15-15.58 (0.43)
Eqp: B737-883 Reg: LN-RPN – Bergfora Viking First flight 13/11/2000
Seat: 9A – Window
My 20th flight on Scandinavian and 18th B737-800 flight

View Large View Medium Photo © Matthias Pietsch - Flaps30

View Large View Medium Photo © Daniel & Robert Fall

Boarding started at 14.50 and it took only ten minutes for everyone to board. Instead of waiting for ever for the gate attendant to check your boarding pass and welcome you aboard, many of the passengers (including us) had regisrered you finger prints and were able to board “automatically”. Passengers sitting rows 1-16 board through door L1 and passengers in rows 17-32 though door L2. The aircraft felt clean and nice. I made my way to seat 9A, a window seat with a good view of the number one engine. The seat pitch is 31” according to Seatguru and it felt kind of cramped, but luckily this was a short flight.


The view from my window

We pushed back at 15.07 and taxied the short way to runway 21. The 737 didn’t need much of the 3.300 metres of the runway before airborne.


Rotate from runway 21

Shortly after take off the plane made a sharp right turn though the clouds. It was some turbulence during the initial climb, but as soon as we were out of the clouds it was smooth flying again. The flight was rather uneventful. After reaching our flight level, which was 33.000 ft, the FAs started walking around trying to sell overpriced sandwiches, snacks and beverages. They actually got me; I bought a cup of coffee. And so did the guy next to me, but when he asked for some more milk she forgot to charge us. Don’t know if I am gonna feel guilty for not telling her, but if you charge 20 SEK (€2) for a mug of weak coffee and throw in a tiny piece of chocolate…who is the crook?


Some airport

At 15.39 we started our decent for Arlanda runway 26. Scandinavian are on many domestic flights using green approaches, which means that the aircraft from top-of-decent doesn’t use its engines until gear down. This saves a lot of fuel, but needs more planning and is not really useful when there is a lot of traffic. Anyway I think this is good way to save both money and the environment. Our approach to ARN was a green approach, It too was rather uneventful, lots of clouds which meant that there were no good opportunities for pics.

After a not too hard nor too smooth landing on runway 26 SK 154 was taxiing towards terminal 4. After a few minutes we were at gate 37. Terminal 4 at ARN is feels kind of old and is in my opinion rather boring (sorry no pics). After we got off the plane we walked to the baggage claim. It took only a few minutes before we got our bags and we headed to Arlanda SkyCity. It is only a two minute walk to the hotel from terminal 4. Check-in at the hotel went easy and we got room 643, a room with an airport view. From the room you look down on SkyCity which is located between terminal 4 and 5 at ARN. The Apparently the hotel chain has changed name from Radisson SAS to Radisson Blu…don’t know why? Anyway the hotel was very nice and clean, the standard rooms are just like any standard hotel room, small with a acceptable bed, desk, fridge and TV. A nice surprise was that we had access to the sauna and Jacuzzi at the hotel gym. So as soon as we had carried our bags to the room we went to the hotel “spa”.





Views from the hotel room




I have been to ARN a couple of times before but only once for an international flight, and I was looking forward to see what Terminal 5 was like. We got up at 5.00 had some breakfast then walked to Terminal 5 for check-in. We were really lucky, four counters was open and now line to any of them, but when we were done there were more than 50 people behind us waiting to check-in. Security went easy and we walked to the duty free to buy something to drink…


Terminal 5 at ARN


Star Alliance Airbuses to MAD, FRA and VIE.


MyTravel A330-300

At 6.15 the departure boards said ‘Go to gate’, one and a half hour before departure seemed kind of long and we weren’t bothered. We sat down and had a cup of coffee and at 6.40 the board said ‘Final call’ so we proceeded through the passport control to gate F 66. The gate was open and we were let into the waiting area. More and more people came and it was really crowded in the end. At 7.40 boarding started, and was completed 12 minutes later.

ARN-EWR Aug 17
Malaysia Airlines 90
Scheduled 7.45-10.05 (8.20)
Actual 8.14-10.07 (7.53)
Eqp: B747-4H6 Reg: 9M-MPN – Pangkor First flight 17/05/2000
Seats: 43K – Window
My 1st flight on Malaysia Airlines and 6th B747-400 flight

We boarded though door L2, Business class seats to your left and right, the stair to the upper deck was in our right and somewhere around to door R2 there was suppose to be a muslim prayer area, I didn’t see it though. We walked down the cabin to our seats 43 J and K. We were suppose to be seated in the rear cabin on this flight but during check-in I found out that we were gonna be in one of the "small" mid-cabins of the aircraft. Good news, I rather rather not sit in the rear cabin of a wide-body jet.
At 8.05 we started taxiing towards runway 19R.

Spanair A320

There were a few planes taking off ahead of us and at 8.14 the B747 lined up on the runway, and without stopping the plane was rolling down the runway. The take off roll lasted for about 45 seconds.


Rotate

Shortly after take off the 747 made a sharp right turn heading northwest. There was some turbulence as we went through the clouds and about 10 minutes after take off the seat-belt sign was turned off.
Headsets were handed out by the FAs and I started to explore the IFE., there were a few good movies and TV-series that I wanted to see during the flight. At this moment I was most looking forward to getting something to eat, but it took almost an hour before “breakfast” was served. I was expecting the breakfast that you’re getting on other airlines; bread with ham, cheese and vegetables, yogurt with müsli, and coffee/tea and juice. But noooo. All we got was a rather dry chicken/coleslaw sandwich plus some coffee and orange juice. I was disappointed because I was really hungry and I honestly expected more from Malaysia Airlines.



Well, the breakfast might have been a disappointment but the rest of the flight was excellent. We were offered drinks and snacks every 10 minutes, water/soft drinks/beer/wine for free, and I have to say that MH serve the best peanuts ever. I had a beer leaned back, relaxed and enjoyed a good sitcom on the IFE. Also the seat pitch was 34” which is very generous for Y-class.

Beer and IFE


Seat pitch

After a while I felt like stretching my legs and I also took some shots of the cabin.





I love the spacious felling that you're get in a wide-body and especially in a 747. The route for this flight was over Norway out over the Atlantic, passing Iceland and Greenland and then Canada before turning south towards the US.



Throughout the flight the seat belt sign wasn't turned on once, which meant no turbulence at all during the flight. Not bad for an almost eight hours in the air. There were also clear skies almost all the time which means good opportunities for pictures.



Overflying Iceland



Approaching Greenland

Overflying Greenland was amazing. The last times I crossed the Atlantic I either had an aisle seat oh it was cloudy, but this time I got a great view of "Arctic Denmark".



Melting Ice (I guess)








East coast of Greenland

About two hours before arrival to Newark we got the dinner menu on our PTVs. I didn't see the two first options but the third was potato salad, mashed potatoes with beef stew and vegetables and a brownie as dessert.



Not too bad for being airline food. After dinner we were offered coffee/tea and if we wanted more drinks. The staff always made sure that every passenger always had something to drink if they wanted so. The only disturbing thing about the service except the breakfast was that they never stopped walking up and down the aisles trying to sell overpriced duty-free products even though no one bought anything. I thing they had two or three rounds and I didn't see a single passenger buy anything.



Montreal/YUL

As we entered American airspace about 9.25 am local we stared our decent to Newark. Got some nice views of up state New York and New Jersey during the approach.



Speed brakes




Approaching Newark Int'l



On final








Leaving Rw 22L

We landed on Rw 22L at 10.07 and taxied to gate 55 and parked next to an El-Al B777-200. When were in the terminal we headed towers immigration, we were not the first ones there, and Air India 747 had also just arrived so we spent some time waiting there. After being questioned about purpose of visit and etcetera we went to the baggage claim and waited there for abbot 30 minutes before going through customs and then took the train to Manhattan.