Flight Report: To Sweden for My Graduation

I officially graduated from KTH in October. The degree is in my hands and unless I end up coming back for a conference or some other reason, I have done everything that I need to do at KTH. My main interaction with my school from here on out will be to look up towards the campus when I switch to Roslagsbanan, the suburban train that serves Northeastern Stockholm. Before that, though, I have my graduation. In some ways, this is a bittersweet graduation. The policies at KTH are such that in order to attend the graduation ceremony in June, you have to have your degree issued by the end of April. For “normal” students, their defense would be in May and for those that defend in early summer, they are invited to the event in December.

The event itself is worth attending: It’s in the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall, which is a fantastic building and where the Nobel dinners are held every year. Despite its name, the hall itself is actually red from the bricks used. The story is that the architect originally planned to paint the hall with blue paint, but changed his mind on seeing the space. It is beautiful and it’s also open to the public, if you visit Stockholm. The Stockholm City Hall tour will take you through all the spaces and are offered in a variety of languages. That said, there is something disappointing about being asked to wait six months to celebrate an accomplishment and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to attend the celebration in the summer was part of the reason that I decided to expand my thesis and defend in September. No one celebrates something six months stale. It’s not even appropriate for a belated card. At that point, you might was well resign yourself to congratulating the person for their next accomplishment on time and feign ignorance. Basically, who has ever heard of a super bowl party in August? Or who has actually, seriously, celebrated Christmas in July?

After the break, three flight reports, some pictures of the in-flight meal, and some comments on suburban roads, plus pictures from the whole trip, including another shot of Mount Rainier.

Flight Report: The Stockholm-Istanbul-Athens-Stockholm Loop

A week and a half ago, I headed back to Istanbul for a couple days before heading on to Greece for the first time. Of course, with that comes some flights and here's a quick photo set from the five flights. More flights on Lufthansa, although mysteriously I received flight credit for these flights, despite the fact that they were booked in the L and E fare buckets which aren't supposed to give any. I won't be looking that gift horse in the mouth..

Stockholm - Istanbul via Munich
Stockholm to Munich (Lufthansa):
The first flight and very good weather. The view of Stockholm is always nice and now the ground is bright green, from all the plants (which are also blooming for allergy sufferers). A standard flight, with a sub par meal: It felt like they rushed it out so they didn't have time to cook. The result was what can be seen after the break....

Arlanda, Stockholm's Airport

 Four and a half more flights after the break, along with inflight meals...

Flight Report: Back to Sweden on Lufthansa

I've previously talked about how to make flying in economy class more comfortable, including ways to get consistently better food on long haul flights but also tricks to get more room, such as my A/C trick. When travelling with two people it's a technique that uses known preferences to discourage people from sitting beside you, giving you a sort of "Business Minus" flight experience.

Air New Zealand's "Skycouch" in their 777-300ERs. Looks nice!

However, for long haul flights, and especially red eyes, the ultimate economy luxury is a row to yourself. If you manage to a get row to yourself, you can sleep across all four seats in enviable luxury. In fact, airlines are taking note of this and Air New Zealand is even offering up a new product which some have dubbed "cuddle class" based on this. Before checking in online, I noticed that based on the seat map it looked like I might have a shot at my own sleeper class. Take a look after the break, plus pictures of Frankfurt and Stockholm...

Flight Report: To Abu Dhabi with Lufthansa for $130

Two nights ago I touched down in Abu Dhabi, so visit a friend who is working on the regional rail system that's being planned. The only reason I could afford to come out here on such short notice was that my round trip ticket was a grand total of $130 for taxes and fees.

I used my miles (earned from my trips back to the US last year) to come here, which is why it was so cheap. An award ticket between Europe and the Middle East is only 35,000 miles, which is a steal when you consider that a regular ticket at such short notice is $616 right now. That means a redemption value of 0.014 cents per mile, which is a above average. In short, it's a good deal thanks to the mileage game. If it wasn't for mileage programs I simply wouldn't be here. :)

But how were the actual flights? Well, read on!

ARN-SEA Flight Report: Update 1: Escape from Europe!

As mentioned in my previous post, getting out of Europe over the last few days has been extremely difficult. There have been major problems with snow and ice in Heathrow (LHR) and Frankfurt (FRA), which has stranded thousands of passengers and made getting to flights, even if they are running but at a different airport basically impossible. In my case, it was a true escape from Europe situation and I am very lucky to not be stuck back in Stockholm! Here's my flight report, plus what happened to make the report possible.

I was originally supposed to be flying in to FRA, but my flight was canceled the night before. After a "quick" call on skype to Continental (CO) and the Lufthansa(LH), I was rebooked on a flight at 6a with LH. I was not looking forward to the 3:30a bus that I would need to catch to get to Arlanda (ARN), but at least I had a seat. The next day after a night bus and train to the airport, I was checked in (no baggage) and sitting down in the lounge when my flight's status went to the dreaded "Inställd" status. The flight was canceled.

There was one shot left to get to FRA, which was a SAS (SK) flight at 9am but nothing was certain at this point. If that flight flew and if I was on it, I would be able to make the connecting flight, since flights were still leaving from FRA, but nothing was landing due to ice on the runway. An even "quicker" (50 minutes on hold) call to CO later, I wasn't really any better than I started. They weren't able to get me on any flights until Friday and didn't even see that I was booked on a LH flight that morning! They canceled the segment that was on my ticket to FRA so I could check in if I got to FRA, but that was it.

I manage to get put on the SK flight to FRA, but that too soon went from "On Time" to "Nytt besked 0900", which means "New information at 0900". When that shows up, it's never good. That flight wasn't leaving anytime soon (and didn't leave until 3pm that day!).

At this point, I'm looking for options. There was a CO flight to Newark (EWR), but I couldn't get standby on that. There was a flight later in the day to Istanbul (IST), which then put me in Chicago (ORD) the next day. And finally, there was a SK flight to ORD that left in 45 minutes. The very nice agent in the lounge put me on standby for that, but had to help other people to get on the same flight so couldn't get me a spot to SEA right then. I would have to get to ORD and then figure out how to get to SEA in the end.

A dash to the gate and through border control, and now it was a waiting game. Would I get on? Continued in the next post...

ARN-SEA Flight Report: Update 0: Rut-Roh!

Well, tomorrow I am to fly ARN-FRA-IAH-SEA, but due to the weather the ARN-FRA part of that flight has been cancelled. The one before it and the one after it are still set to go (we'll see how long that lasts!), but my flight has been cancelled. This will be an interesting flight back home.

My options at the moment, if I am unable to get on the earlier two flight is to wait for another day, haggle, or to buy a different ticket. I could get on the 6:05am flight for the low low price of 8061sek ($1,175).

No.

Right now I'm on hold on to get a hold of Continental, but this will be interesting getting home.