Hillerød; Friday, 28 August, 2026

As it was an evening flight from Gatwick, I was able to work until my normal finishing time before heading down to the station to catch the train over to Gatwick.

I could probably have left it quite a bit longer before heading out, as by the time I got to Gatwick Norwegian had already posted a 45-minute delay, which would eventually end up being over an hour, but as I had lounge access, I wasn’t that worried.

The other problem was despite choosing a seat when I booked the flight nearly a year earlier, and making sure the same seat was still selected at checking the day before, by the time I got to the gate someone at Norwegian had decided to reallocate my seat (by the looks of it when I boarded to off-duty crew) and push me into the middle of the plane.

My reason for selecting a seat in the very back row had been that because Norwegian use both the front and rear doors for boarding, being at the back would mean a quick exit at Copenhagen and therefore one of the first at the border, which is important as experience has taught me that Copenhagen is not handling EES particularly well. With the seat change I was now right in the middle of the plane and consequently by the time I reached the border most of the rest of the plane was already there, meaning it took the best part of 30 minutes to get into Denmark.

Thankfully I was staying at an airport hotel so it was only another 5 minutes’ walk to the hotel and, because I’d checked in online with a digital key, straight to my room without even stopping at reception, getting a little bit of delayed satisfaction noting that the person who had been given my chosen seat was only just at the front of a pretty long queue for hotel check-in.