Finnair wet lease by Danish Air Transport

I know from experience that very little is open on Sundays in Denmark, so I decided to spend my day enjoying some nice flights instead.  I booked my return flight from Copenhagen on Finnair via Helsinki, which might have actually been even more ridiculous than my flight from Berlin to Warsaw to London, haha.  From Copenhagen to Helsinki, I had expected to fly on a typical short Finnair A320 business class flight, but actually it ended up being a wet-leased Danish Air Transport (DAT) A320.  I found this particularly interesting because Finnair is currently operating some BA flights from London (e.g. to Toulouse) on a wet-lease basis.  I wouldn’t have expected Finnair, which is generally a very conservative airline, to overstretch itself and need to wet-lease aircraft.  Either way, it made the flight more interesting, and interesting is exactly what I wanted that day.  This was my first time ever on a wet-leased plane, which is generally more common in Europe than in the US. I’ve actually flown DAT a few times, but only ever its turboprops domestically within Denmark.

Upon arrival at the airport, I was greeted by massive security lines that said it’d take 45+ minutes.  Luckily, since I was flying business class with Finnair, I was able to use the ‘CPH Fasttrack’ and skip the line, which was great.  I didn’t check a bag because Heathrow Airport has been having horrible problems with its baggage handling, and so I didn’t want to play baggage roulette. 

Upon clearing security, I proceeded directly to the lounge.  I had access to both the Aspire and the Carlsberg Aviator lounges through all of: my business class ticket, my Oneworld Emerald status, and my Priority Pass.  I selected the Carlsberg Aviator lounge because I find Aspire lounges are generally pretty poor, and I do like Carlsberg beer. 

I scanned my boarding card and was directed to the business lounge.  The other side appeared to be more of a restaurant.  The lounge was one room divided into four sections, including a balcony that overlooked the terminal.  It’s not like it had a particularly good view, but it did have a good vibe.

I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I headed immediately for the buffet, which was split into two sections.  The first section consisted of the bar, along with a pretty standard selection of breakfast pastries and fruit.

The second section contained cold cut meats and cheese, which was more typical of a Scandinavian breakfast. I opted to try out both, along with a Carlsberg Special Brew.

All the food served was cold, which was totally fine by me, but I know a lot of people want a warm breakfast in the lounge.  Given that my flight was not going to be operated by DAT instead of Finnair, I figured it was unlikely that I’d be served a hot meal.  I saw that the flight was going to leave from an A gate, which was not too far from the lounge, so I decided to wait until a few minutes before boarding to head to the gate. 

On my way there, I saw a Faroe Islands airplane, which is pretty unique!

Upon arrival at the gate, I saw that the screen was broken but that boarding hadn’t started yet.  Interestingly, rather than having DAT livery, the airplane was just blank white, haha. 

I was able to board in group 1, and given my relatively short layover time, I didn’t want to run into any problems with my overhead bag, so I decided to take advantage of it.  When I tried to board, I apparently had to get my documents checked and was snarkily told that they’d been calling for me.  I simply informed the man that I’d been in the lounge and had only just gotten to the gate.  It was pretty reminiscent of a flight to London one time, but more snark.

I selected seat 1D, which is generally my preferred seat for a standard intra-Europe business class flight. When I was selecting my seat originally, only row 1 was blocked for business class and no seats had yet been taken.

I immediately noticed that the seats were pretty old and worn and that there was no divider between business class and the rest of the plane. The seat was also one of the most uncomfortable plane seats I’ve sat in in years; I was not a fan. the leg room was decent, however.

This flight was relatively short, but they did still serve a (cold) meal of a chicken salad, which was actually pretty good. The meal tasted exactly how you’d think it would based on what you can see; there’s not a lot to say about a prepackaged salad with a prepackaged cookie.

I’d say the meal was on par with the lower end of Finnair’s catering.

The galley had a curtain around it to separate the crew from passengers, which makes sense to me. But it was interesting to see it on the aircraft because I can’t imagine DAT usually has much of a meal service or much use for the galley for its normal flights. But this was the first time I’d taken a DAT jet aircraft.

In summary, my second Danish Air Transport flight and my first wet-leased plane definitely piqued my interest.  The ground experience in Copenhagen was typical for a Oneworld outstation in Europe (3/5).  The seat on the plane was the most uncomfortable airplane seat I’ve sat in in years, but I did have the row to myself (2/5).  The salad was pretty good, and on par with other short-haul flights I’ve had with BA (3/5).  The service was good, but definitely not as good as Finnair’s business service, which makes sense because DAT doesn’t normally offer business class (3/5).  The plane had no IFE, which was definitely a step down from Finnair’s usual offering (0/5).  This flight was definitely not up to Finnair’s normal standards, which is what I expected, so although this flight gets a low rating of 11/25, I really enjoyed the chance to check this flight out.

A non-trivial part of the reason that I booked this ticket was to get 120 tier points (40 for the first flight and 80 for the second).  I credited the flight to BA, so I earned Avios based on the distance flown, but unlike on American Airlines, I don’t bonus Avios from Gold Status, so the first flight netted me 973 Avios and the second flight netted me 1978 Avios.  I paid around $330 on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card and earned 660 Chase UR points.  Normally, I’d use the Platinum card, but I would’ve had to pay a 1.95% credit card fee.  Basically, I could’ve bought 1 025 Amex points for $6.44 (a rate of 0.6 ¢/pt).  It would’ve been worth it in theory because I could’ve gotten around $15.40 of value from the points, but as an irrational consumer, I didn’t go for it.  So instead, I earn a total of 2 951 Avios and 660 Chase UR points, for a return of around 15%.