The Quest for Saab 2000 – intra European KF/SN/LH/AF/AY/DC

[Carfield]

Pillow and blanket


Pre-arrival beverage and Geisha chocolates – milk chocolate with hazelnut filling




Descent soon began at 11am local time, and here are couple shots taken prior to landing.


We landed on R/W15 at 11:19am and parked at spot 132 five minutes later.

[Carfield]

OH-LVK at Helsinki






Finnair A340 OH-LQF resting after the overnight flight from Singapore


Air Finland’s Boeing 757-200 winglet OH-AFI towing to gate

[Carfield]

June 21, 2011
KF 281 HEL-VAA Lv1425 Arr1520 RJ-85 OH-SAP “Pielinen”


Not going to write much about this flight, except sharing a few photos.
Blue 1 Check-in area at HEL T-1 – basically Star Alliance area with a few local Finnish carriers flights



Blue 1 branding throughout the airport



Blue 1 Boeing 717 getting ready – match with Blue Sky



OH-SAP at HEL
The flight arrived slightly late from Stockholm Arlanda.



Cabin service – a choice of ham or cheese sandwich in business class with water, orange juice, tea or coffee. Coach gets tea or coffee service.

[Carfield]

Arrival into Vaasa




Vaasa airport – airborne view



OH-SAP at VAA

[Carfield]

VAA terminal – crew operating the return flight was waiting


Arrival Board


Why Saab 2000?
Saab Turbprop operations in the US has long been limited to Saab 340, and I have flown a couple AA Saab 340 flights to San Diego and Santa Barbara from LAX, as well as a REX Australian domestic flights to Albury. Saab 2000 has been mostly limited to European flights, and the plane looks very smart and reading so many trip reports on Air Darwin and Crossair have attracted me to this particular aircraft type. I am determined to fly it in 2011 and have thought about various options, like OLT from Bremen/Toulouse, Darwin from Lugano to various destinations, and then I came across the Swedish operator, Golden Air, and a couple flights operated for Blue 1. I immediately find that Golden Air has operated various Vaasa or Turku to Stockholm flights using Saab 2000 exclusively. At the end I narrow it to Vaasa because Blue 1 offers a very attractive low fare to Vaasa. I am definitely not disappointed at the end.

KF/DC 467 VAA-ARN Lv1835 Arr1840 Saab 2000 Turboprop SE-LSE
Vaasa terminal is very compact as expected. It has a nice charm to it with various interesting decorations. It is compact with airline offices, check-in counter, baggage claim, and gates all the in same level. It definitely has a certain charm to it and it is rare to have the opportunity to be the only passenger in a terminal building, not to mention that I am the only Asian passenger throughout the afternoon and it definitely makes me feel self-conscious.

Main Entrance to the terminal



ATC Tower


Flags showing airlines serving Vaasa



Departure Board


Check-in area



SAS/Blue 1


Self-service kiosk – that is how I checked in

[Carfield]

Finnair/Finncomm check-in area


Main seating area





Café – the only eatery in the terminal building


BMW motorcycle display






VAA award

[Carfield]

Activities are fairly limited to various Blue 1 flights to Helsinki and Stockholm Arlanda, Finnair flights to Helsinki, and Air Baltic’s flight to Umea and Riga.

Here is Finnair’s EMB-170 OH-LEG serving Helsinki!






The airport started to get busy around late afternoon hours, as there were a number of flights heading to Helsinki and Stockholm. The free WIFI at the airport however kept everyone busy and most passengers were business type wearing suits. Security was only opened when there were departing flights. I entered the gate area while the Finnair flight was boarding. I wanted to catch the arrival of my flight from Stockholm. The beautiful all-white Saab 2000 landed at R/W16 at 5:58pm and parked at spot 3 a few minutes later.

Gate 3





Parked at gate 3


SE-LSE is delivered to SAS in 1997, and transferred to Blue 1 in 2001. This particular aircraft still has an all-white finishing and the only motif in the aircraft is a “Blue 1” logo on top of the fuselage, and checking RZjet, there is a Finnish registration – OH-SAW. The plane looks very smart and the long fuselage gives it a distinct look – very different from the Dash 8-Q400 that I am familiar with.

Boarding time – light was turned on

[Carfield]

Close-up of the plane




Propeller – Ae2100



Nose



Blue 1 motif



Boarding began at 6:16pm and there were newspapers available again at the entrance. The gate agent also provides tags for roller-on carry on bags, as the overhead space is very limited. The load was quite full in both business and economy. I use optiontown to secure an upgrade (needed the bonus points), and business class occupied almost half of the aircraft up to row 9. I was in 8A, and got a good view of the propeller, but it had a disadvantage, which I discovered after takeoff. It is a three-abreast arrangement with A being solo seats. The fuselage is narrow with a small overhead bin on the BC side. Carryon space is limited and the disadvantage of “A” side is the lack of overhead bin. The headroom is limited too, but the cabin looks clean and well maintained. However I was a bit surprised both Swedish flight attendants sit in the front during takeoff and landing – 1B is blocked for F/As, but there are no rear doors – only two front doors and two over-window exits. Just a quick reminder – Golden Air operates the flight, and both the F/As and cockpit crews are Swedish.

[Carfield]

Cabin shot





Legroom shot



Seat close-up
Not sure what this is – might be to absorb vibration


My seat – 8A



Safety card


Door was closed at 6:29pm and being the only active plane, I took off from R/W16 at 6:36pm. Flying time was fifty minutes with a cruising attitude of 26,000feet. The service began shortly after takeoff, and the two F/As were pretty busy with many business class passengers. The galley is located in the back. Here comes a pleasant surprise – a light meal along with full beverage service was provided after takeoff, and then complimentary tea and coffee for economy class passengers. The F/A pushed out a trolley soon, and when I pulled out my tray table, I realized that the vibration was actually quite severe, compared to other turboprops. I am sure it has to do with my seat location. I apologize for the less stellar meal pictures – it is hard to do a focused picture when your tray table is vibrating consistently. Anyway, the light meal was a chilled meatball platter with a really nice sweet potatoes, carrot, and sweet onion salad, along with sour cream. There is a sweet – PLOPP’s chocolate with toffee fillings, as well a small container of water. A bottle of red wine – Saulita Cabernet Red Wine came on the tray as well. Tea and coffee, and a second round of beverage is offered later.

[Carfield]

Light Meal


Main Entrée



Sides


The cold meal is actually quite tasty – not filling but a good evening snack. I am surprised no bread is provided being a European carrier.

View of propeller in the plane


Descent began at 7:06pm after the second beverage service began in business class. Seat belt sign was turned on at 7:14pm, and both F/As actually worked till the end of the flight, but I am sure both appreciate an earlier landing time. We landed on R/W19L at 6:26pm and parked at the commuter pier G – spot 146 seven minutes later. We had to take a bus to the terminal, and the advantage is that we arrived directly into the baggage hall.

SE-LSE at Stockholm



A nearby Nextjet Saab 2000




Welcome to Stockholm sign at baggage hall


I continued my journey with a quick flight to Helsinki on a Norwegian Boeing 737-800 flight with the new Boeing Interior and free WIFI connection. I did not take any pictures as it were late, but wanted to report that Norwegian was not a bad experience, and the WIFI actually worked very well and the connections were extremely fast. I wish gogoinflight here could learn a few things from them, and gogoinflight did not work so well when you had a large number of passengers using the server.

Thanks for reading the report!

Carfield

[9V-SIA]

Another enjoyable TR Carfield

Love the quirky RJ85

[milehighj]

Another great TR, thanks for posting it Carfield.

[leo]

very nice! thanks for posting!

[sqdazz]

great report!!

one correction - the nextjet aircraft is a BAe ATP not a SAAB 2000

[Pinkfloyd]

Great report, cheers!