Maersk Air To Copenhagen

Written by Patrick Middleton

From Reporter Issue 105

In an occasional series about airline service Patrick Middleton flies Maersk Air to Copenhagen

Airline marketing amounts for a lot of the time to hype or outright untruths. Denmark’s Maersk Air, which relaunched its product earlier this year, centres its sales pitch on the idea of making the traveller as free as possible: “Fly as you like.” That’s an attractive concept as air travel becomes more and more constrained by increasing passenger numbers and intrusive security measures.

“A switch during the flight”
So does the company deliver on its slogan? Absolutely. On my recent flight I talked to two people. Annette is French and was off to visit her son who works in Copenhagen. She is, let’s say, a well-built lady and after twenty minutes in the air she asked to move to a bigger seat. No problem. She moved up the cabin, settled into a roomier seat and paid the difference then and there with her Visa card. On an average Maersk flight three or four passengers do like Annette. “It’s a unique system,” explained veteran purser Steffen Teisholm. “As you see, we’ve got four kinds of seating on our 737-400, from standard Economy to big long haul-style Business seats at the front. You can book in advance — or make a switch during the flight.”

Then there was Jesper who was on his way home to Odense with Bibi, his Yorkshire Terrier. Steffen smiled: “We Danes are great dog people and smaller pets are always welcome on board. I’ve noticed, by the way, that we carry more dogs out of Nice than from any other point of departure. Sometimes we have four on a single flight. They have to be in a water-tight container and it’s up to check-in to make sure they’re well separated. Apart from that, dogs, too, can fly as they like.”

Maersk is a budget airline but that can mean many things. Says Steffen, who joined the carrier 22 years ago: “We have very competitive fares but we aim to offer a service which gives maximum satisfaction to our passengers. Take food and drink. Apart from tea and coffee you pay. We’ve got a menu on board but you can also find a wider choice on the Internet and order up before you fly. We don’t have that take it or leave it attitude you sometimes get with airline catering. For example, you’ll always find our bread rolls are fresh and warm. A detail, but it counts. Of course, you’re free not to eat — or you can bring your own sandwiches. We don’t mind.”

“Eliminating needless hassle”
As Steffen detailed the various aspects of the Maersk product I realised they had a lot to teach many other carriers in terms of eliminating needless hassle. “Say you want to change your ticket — date, destination, even the name of the passenger. It’s dead easy up to three hours before take-off with just a small extra payment. We’re very tight on security but using that as a reason for refusing to allow tickets to be passed on to another person is a nonsense.” This all sounds too good to last? Nej. Maersk Air is part of the huge Danish A.P. Moller group and is financially very sound. And that’s good news: flight DM342 NCE-CPH was one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a long time.

Maersk flies to Copenhagen every day except Wednesday. Remember, too, that with the Oresund bridge (see Reporter n° 89) the Danish capital is also the ideal gateway to southern Sweden.