I'm currently somewhere near 60.45 N, 22.28 E, a place known to the finnish natives as Turku and to a lot of other people as "Slightly south-west of the middle of nowhere".
Basically I'm here to attend a wedding of one of my colleagues. The wedding actually takes place somewhere outside of Turku, which probably means closer to "the middle of nowhere"-proper.
The reason I'm impressed has to do with how I got here. Not to keep you in suspense for any longer, I used an airlines called Blue1, which is somehow linked to SAS.
What's to be impressed about? Blue1 is one of the growing number of low-cost airlines. Flying from Copenhagen to Turku, which takes about an hour and 15 minutes, costs me 100 euros round-trip. Not bad.
However, I expected an Easyjet-like operation and was proven wrong. Very wrong. Some examples:
- The cabin-crew was attentive and professional.
- The flight left perfectly on time.
- They actually served proper meal! No age-old sandwiches or something but a three course affair: Smoked Salmon, Chicken with potato-salad and a chocolate muffin.
- Proper drinks as well. Coffee or tea as well as water with your meal, plus your choice of drink on top, including beer (didn't ask about wine). Not just that, they even asked if I wanted anything else besides what I had already ordered.
- The flight astoundingly arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
Of course the last point is moot as it was likely due to the weather, but nice all the same.
I think most frequent travellers have all but forgotten what flying used to be like after the economic crises and 9/11. The above is what flying a regular airline used to be like. Now it is very rare indeed, especially on short-haul flights.
Yet this is supposed to be a LOW COST AIRLINE!
Too bad these guys (and gals) don't fly to very many destinations...
