Best Airline to Copenhagen

Hi,

Does anyone have a good suggestion for the best airline to Copenhagen? We are leaving from Toronto, or could leave from Buffalo. I have been so unhappy with air travel lately, uncertain schedules, poor service and squished up seats! So, we are thinking of upgrading to premium economy or if we can find a great airline service then maybe we can stay in cheaper economy. Any ideas? I had a nightmare flying in from San Juan this winter and my husband will veto any further trips if we have a repeat experience!

Canada Air will fly with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner daily between Toronto and Copenhagen during the summer.

I´m guessing that Buffalo is nearby the New York airports.

SAS flys out of Newark and if your departure is with the Airbus A330 it will be with the brand new cabin.

The A340´s will first get the new cabin later in the year.

Delta and Norwegian flys out of JFK, Delta uses the Boeing 757 or 767 and Norwegian uses the 787 Dreamliner.

I would be looking on the Cruise Air board, here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=128

as there are lots of experts there.

You would discover, for example, there is really no difference amongst international coach seats. There are all pretty much the same.

No American domestic carrier has a "Premium Economy". Some American carriers have a section (called Economy Plus, on United, for example) of slightly enhanced economy. Don't believe Air Canada does, but could be wrong.

I would fly out of Toronto as it is a truly international airport. Out of Buffalo, you will be connecting elsewhere.

Be careful of Canada Air. It has become a real discount airline flying overseas. We could have saved a few hundred dollars. But I read tons of awful reviews when booking last year's overseas trip. Just going on what I read on the air travel blogs we avoided it. United links some of their flights to Canada Air. So watch who is actually operating the flights.

We ended up booking the premium coach on United for the extra seating room going over. Not business class, but certainly gave DH a few inches more room for his long legs.

This summer we are using Swiss Air from Chicago. We've used them before and liked the experience better than American airlines.

when you all are speaking of canada air, is that a different airline than air canada? it is one i am also considering using next may to fly from tpa to copenhagen.

when you all are speaking of canada air, is that a different airline than air canada? it is one i am also considering using next may to fly from tpa to copenhagen.

No, the correct name is Air Canada.

Though I have had many issues with Air Canada over the years, to be fair, I do not think the mainline Air Canada flights are any worse than those of most other North American airlines. If you want something akin to United's "Economy Plus" on Air Canada, you can pay a small extra charge and get a seat with extra legroom.

The most frequent problems are with the recently-established "Air Canada Rouge", a (supposedly) lower-price airline-within-an-airline. The Rouge flights to Europe generally use older aircraft to which extra seats have been added (reduced legroom) and service has been further curtailed. I avoid Rouge flights, as do many other people. Unfortunately, all Air Canada flights to some destinations that Air Canada judges to be mainly of interest to vacationers are now Rouge flights.

However, the Toronto to Copenhagen B787 flights this summer are, I believe, mainline flights. One concern about them (at least for some of us) is that the Economy seating on AC's new B787 aircraft is all 3x3x3 -- not nearly as good for couples as the 2x3x2 seating on Air Canada's B767 aircraft, or the 2x4x2 seating on their A330 flights. Premium Economy (much more costly) on AC's B787 aircraft is, I believe, 2x3x2.

John

Though I have had many issues with Air Canada over the years, to be fair, I do not think the mainline Air Canada flights are any worse than those of most other North American airlines. If you want something akin to United's "Economy Plus" on Air Canada, you can pay a small extra charge and get a seat with extra legroom.

 

The most frequent problems are with the recently-established "Air Canada Rouge", a (supposedly) lower-price airline-within-an-airline. The Rouge flights to Europe generally use older aircraft to which extra seats have been added (reduced legroom) and service has been further curtailed. I avoid Rouge flights, as do many other people. Unfortunately, all Air Canada flights to some destinations that Air Canada judges to be mainly of interest to vacationers are now Rouge flights.

 

However, the Toronto to Copenhagen B787 flights this summer are, I believe, mainline flights. One concern about them (at least for some of us) is that the Economy seating on AC's new B787 aircraft is all 3x3x3 -- not nearly as good for couples as the 2x3x2 seating on Air Canada's B767 aircraft, or the 2x4x2 seating on their A330 flights. Premium Economy (much more costly) on AC's B787 aircraft is, I believe, 2x3x2.

 

John

Yes this is what I was referring to...the Air Canada Rouge overseas flights. Cheaper like I said. But DH didn't like the older aircraft being used. And what bloggers said about old uncomfortable seats. Tough for so many hours.

Agree that seating arrangement on the long flights is important to us too.

We are from Buffalo and flew Air Canada to Europe and back last summer, as well as in November of 2012. This summer we're flying on Air Canada from Toronto to Copenhagen with a connection at Frankfurt (Lufthsansa) and then we have a direct flight back from Copenhagen to Toronto. We have had nothing but good experiences, and like someone said earlier Air Canada has a lot of direct flights in and out of Toronto and if not, the connections are much better than we've found out of Buffalo.

Last summer, our son, who was flying in to Toronto to meet us for our flight overseas, was on a flight which was delayed, and it became clear that he would miss our flight. We were very upset (even though he was 22 at the time!) and thought about switching to a later flight, but were told that they didn't have four seats available on another flight until the following day. The Air Canada gate attendants assured us that they would care of him and we left on our flight without him. Several hours into our flight, a flight attendant brought us something that looked a bit like a telegram that gave us the details of the flight that our son had been put on! They took care of rerouting his luggage, gave him a voucher for dinner and put him in first class on a flight that arrived at our destination five hours after we did. You can't beat that for customer service!

If you have access to Icelandair or WOW, both discount to Northern Europe.

Great information, thanks! We flew Rouge to Venice last summer and it was "OK". The biggest issues for us was that the inflight entertainment is missing. If you have an apple device you are OK, but some of the customers had glitches and it's a long flight if you are expecting to watch a movie but can't. They did have an option of device rental. The flight itself was OK but squishy. We have flown Air Transat and upgraded to "Club Class" and this was surprisingly quite nice. I was thinking that maybe on of the European Airlines like Lufthansa, SAS or British Airways might be better in the service and comfort areas? Would love to upgrade to first class but this is so expensive. We are going next spring, but I will book as far ahead as possible since this seems to give us the best prices.

We flew icelandair several years ago. For $50 extra we could do a stopover in Iceland. I highly recommend this if you have extra time. We stopped in Reykjavik for several days and had a great addition to our vacation.

Can recommend Icelandair. Five hours from New York and three hours to CPH.

Aircraft are B757 with good legroom and seat back TV, food and drink are extra.

Stopovers are free and Iceland is a wonderful place to visit.

Icelandair does have connections from YYZ-Toronto via Keflavik to CPH-Copenhagen.

You could also try Aer Lingus from Toronto Pearson to Dublin to Copenhagen. Maybe even spend a few nights in Dublin too!

SAS have also launched a few new routes from USA.

Copenhagen-Miami

Oslo-Miami

Stockholm-Los Angeles.

http://www.sasgroup.net/en/sas-expands-with-new-direct-routes-to-usa-2/

WOW air have also launched new routes from US west coast:

http://wowair.us/magazine/blog/wow-air-to-add-los-angeles-and-san-francisco-routes-in-2016

Also Boston-Copenhagen with SAS and Las Vegas-Copenhagen and Boston-Copenhagen with Norwegian.

If the OP is in the Toronto area, the pluses of taking a direct (preferably non-stop) from Toronto probably outweigh any advantage of going to a different airport. When it comes to flying Coach to Europe, we just figure that all the airlines SUCK! If going business class, then one might want to carefully consider the different options (and prices).

Hank

Icelandair does have connections from YYZ-Toronto via Keflavik to CPH-Copenhagen.

That's exactly what we are doing in 2016! Economy Comfort or Saga Class is an affordable upgrade from the squished seats of economy.

I can recommend Icelandair. Their economy class is quite spacious, albeit with paid-for drinks and food. You are allowed 2 bags on transatlantic flights and free overnight and longer stopovers in Iceland.

It's 5 hours from New York to Keflavik and then 2 1/2 to 3 hours onward to your European destinations. The shorter duration flight times suit me.

I am flying to NYC from my local airport next April, stopping overnight in Keflavik where the airport is located, (we have been to Reykjavik many times), for £347 return. Direct flights on United with a slightly shorter journey time are £450 and up.

One tip: My Mrs once asked me "What will the weather be like in Iceland?".

"My Darling, the clue is in the name............".

Air Canada is upgrading their Copenhagen route next summer, in June, July and August they will use the Boeing 787-9 instead of the smaller 787-8.

It means around 40 more seats per flight so perhaps also lower fares.

We are flying KLM next May from YVR to Amsterdam and connecting to Copenhagen. I have not flown them before but friends have and enjoyed the flight. I checked and they have the same connection from Toronto. We are staying 3 days in Amsterdam and then flying to Copenhagen. It was actually cheaper to do that than to fly to Copenhagen the same day.

Have you tried using ITA Matrix? You can't book flights but you can check multiple airlines and then choose who you wish to fly with. Just google it and it is pretty easy to use. They have an app for iPad called ON THE FLY

We just booked our air through Princess EZ air on SAS. We will be going through Dulles (Washington, DC) to Copenhagen and were able to upgrade to Premium Economy. DH is handicapped and the regular economy seats are tough on him. Plus, we checked the seating layout and we able to get 2 seats on the side together. I am tired of being the one in the middle!