Sun Air of Scandinavia Overview

I had actually never heard of Sun Air of Scandinavia until a few weeks before this flight. I happened to be flying Luxair from London City to Luxembourg (review here) when I saw this strange aircraft in British Airways colours. At the time I didn’t know what it was so did some research and found out that Sun Air fly from London City to Billund, Denmark. And after finding out you can pay with Avios I decided I’d give them a go.

Founded in 1978 Sun Air of Scandinavia originally just did regional flights around Denmark. Then after a few years of taking Danish people on holiday they became a franchise of British Airways (for reasons completely unknown to me). Historically they had a fleet of BAE Jetstreams (small regional props with 19 to 64 seats depending on variant). After retiring all of these in the mid 2000s they now just have a small fleet of 8 Dornier 328 JETs.

As a franchise of British Airways, all of their aircraft are painted in the British Airways livery as you’ve probably noticed by now. So that makes Sun Air’s aircraft probably the most unique looking in British Airways fleet. Another quirk is that Sun Air don’t even have their own website to book tickets through. You can only book tickets directly through the British Airways website (or a third party travel agent site).

Also, you can see from their route map below… They don’t exactly serve many destinations. Just London City, Manchester, Gothenburg and Dusseldorf. I’ve also heard they operate charter flights all over Europe, but I don’t think they have any schedule. Lastly, Sun Air are the only airline I’ve seen that take a summer break. They completely shut down from July to September and do zero flights.

London City Airport (LCY)

 London City Airport (LCY) is very pretty unique compared to most other airports in the world. Firstly the short 1,500m runway, surrounding water and tall buildings mean aircraft need to be able to operate a steep 5.5 degree landing and be capable of short takeoffs/landings. That means pilots need special certification to fly here. And aircraft need to be certified and tested before they’re allowed to operate here. The largest aircraft allowed at LCY is the Airbus A318, though most commonly you’ll see the Embraer E190, ATR 72, Dash 8 and Airbus A220-100.

Serving almost 5 million passengers a year it is surprisingly busy considering its tiny runway and footprint. The limited space also means the airport terminal is on the cramped side. In many places it feels more like a shed than an airport, and you’ll have to use stairs to board every flight, no jet bridges here. Again, due to the small size, there’s basically nothing to do inside the terminal. With just a few cafes and small shops and limited seating available. There’s not even a lounge here, though I hear a new one will be opening in 2024, so that’s exciting.

Probably the best thing about London City is how incredibly efficient it is. I only arrived 45 min before the scheduled departure time and still had plenty of time. They have loads of self check-in kiosks. And they’re the first (I think?) UK airport to upgrade their security scanners. So you don’t have to take laptops of liquids out of your bag, which is a game changer. I’ve flown from this airport maybe 5 times now and it’s never taken me more than 5 minutes from arrival to clearing security.

Lastly, the airport is great for plane spotting. I sat here to watch the planes takeoff and land whilst waiting for today’s flight. Just look at how steeply this Lufthansa E190 is taking off. Not many airports in the world would give you a scene like this.

The Plane and Seat

The Dornier 328 JET is the jet version of the slightly more popular Dornier 328 Turboprop. Only 110 of the JET version were ever built, whilst 217 turboprops were built. It’s actually a relatively modern aircraft too, with the jets only being produced between 1996 and 2002. My aircraft today was 21.7 year old with registration OY-NCO.

These planes are laid out in a 1-2 configuration with 32 seats in total. And I had booked seat 9A which had no seat next to it. Unfortunately they changed my seat to 9F due to “weight and balance adjustments”, which does have a neighbour. Understandable on a small plane like this. But it would have been nice to have a more private seat.

The cabin is quite small and only has overhead lockers on one side. So if you’re tall you might hit your head. Also if the flight was full, instead of not even 50% like today, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they run out of overhead space.

The downside of using a small plane like this is that space is obviously limited. Seat pitch is 32″ according to Seatmaps, but it feels less due to how thick the seats are. The seats themselves are pretty comfortable though, with very soft leather cushioning.

Breakfast

Sun Air of Scandinavia are one of the few airlines in Europe who offer a free meal service to all passengers. In fact the only other airline I can think of is Turkish Airlines. And some people may not even classify them as a European Airline. This was an early morning flight so we were served a continental Danish-style breakfast. Which consisted of salami, cheese, a single tomato, a slice of bell pepper, lettuce and a mini egg tart. On the side was a strawberry yoghurt, a choice of bread rolls, raspberry jam, butter and some delicious cheesy spread called Piquant.

Overall the meal was good, and more than I was expecting. The only downside is my bread roll was overly hard. But the other options actually looked softer, so maybe I just chose the wrong roll. You also get metal cutlery and a nice cloth napkin.

To drink there is the typical choice of soft drinks you’ll find on any airline, I went for orange juice. Then a few minutes after the main meal service the flight attendant offered a choice of tea or coffee. I went to coffee since I was still half asleep.

Service & Everything Else

Final Thoughts

Overall, flying the Dornier 328 JET with Sun Air was a really cool experience. Something that’s hard to come by when most flights within Europe are just the same old Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s with no inflight service.

First of all the Dornier 328 is just a unique plane with Sun Air being on of the only operators in the world. It’s not spacious, but they make up for that with great service. Having a full meal served in Economy is unheard of within Europe. And all the flight/cabin crew were very friendly. They even let me in the cockpit after landing so really I can’t think of anything bad to say about this Sun Air flight. Best of all, I was able to use Avios to pay for the flight. So instead of costing £326 it was just 9,250 Avios plus £0.50, absolute bargain.

More from me…

Please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:

• Malaysia Airlines Economy A350-900 – Great food on a 13 hour flight
• No1 Lounge at London Gatwick South – Surprisingly good
• Singapore Airlines Economy from London to Singapore – As Good as People Say?

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