Like people, first impressions are also to be had with places. With the speed of air-travel, the difference from your place of origin to the place of destination, can prove to be quite a dramatic transition. The potential for the weather, season, air, scenery, geography, language, culture, architecture having a blasting new impact on you, is a very real thing when you approach landing and enter uncharted air-terminal territory. Airports have therefore always left me with certain first impressions. And with all first impressions, they tend potentially to be quite impactful, alarmingly accurate and carry long term consequences.
This particular Friday February morning, life took me to Copenhagen, Kastrup airport (aka CPH). Hardly a first impressions at all, because this is an airport that I have been visiting for as long as I can remember. I have witnessed it grow and develop into a sure Northern European airport HUB. From CPH you can reach most European and Intercontinental destinations, hence quite a large and well visited airport. So it was therefore with great trepidation that I consciously took on this frame of mind – pretending this was my first ever trip to CPH!
First impressions started already before landing. The plane descended into a sky level of cotton-wool dotted clouds, quite a dense layer they were too. And in between these cotton wool layers of clouds you could detect the rather grey-teal sea-water and just above clear blue sky. Quite fascinating actually, the type of clouds that you would fantasize walking in, if the clouds were of solid material of course.
The pictures above give you an impression of what it was like up there. As soon as the clouds parted, windmills entered the scene and in addition to that, quite a nice and sunny day. CPH is located right by the sea next to the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen – the latter on Denmarks island Sjælland. It is also where the bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden lies. So if you happen to have some errands in the south of Sweden, the airport train is a very efficient way of getting there. Not only will you be traveling on the Øresund bridge, but you will also see how windy and beautiful the area is, hence the windmills.
Once you arrive at the gate, as far as airports are concerned, its fairly simple. You do however get the impression that you have arrived at an international HUB though. You will immediately spot the lineup of intercontinental airlines. Signs are clearly visible when you exit the aircraft, directions in english and danish (assuming you can read any of those lingos), clean, safe and quite busy. And if you are in the mood for shopping, there are a sleuth of international and danish brands to choose from.
CPH is absolutely a walking airport. It has grown and been rebuilt numerous times since its inception, creating long stretches of terminals going in all known directions. But, once you pick up your luggage, you enter the outdoors where the air is clean, taxi drivers friendly and safe and off you go. Other public transportion like train, metro and busses are of course also good options and right by.
So hardly any big stories to report on as far as first impressions are concerned. All very nordic, but compared to other nordic countries, decidedly flat as far as geography is concerned. Denmark is also know for “hygge” their great gastronomy, bike rides etc. So much to enjoy and you can’t possibly go wrong.
What about the colour in this story?
The colour impression of CPH is actually dictated by its flooring, depicted in the middle picture above and which has been laid down virtually everywhere. If I were to guess, it would be in the area of Merbau or the like, and together with their black and yellow signs, some glass here and there, it comprises the average vibe of the airport.
But the flooring isn’t what made an impression. The SAS blue brand colour however did.
Airline logos and uniform colours is a HUGE topic. SAS has had it’s turns of changing, updating, revising etc like all other airlines and brands. But the latest change in logo colours has invariably been a choice I struggled to make sense of. The blue as their current brand colour is very bright – really bright. This blue is also very cool. There are some “rules” for uniform colouring and styling, in that they should be more or less be universally flattering. For the years of travel interspersed with intervals of semi-boredom in SAS machines, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for the SAS staff having to pull this colour off. When you see it up close, and assuming their garments have undergone a couple of washes, the blue is closer to dark/bright Chinese blue with a touch of teal in it. When you use the SAS “blue” on an aircraft however, the metal as a medium becomes a bit more forgiving as far as the shade is concerned. I even venture to say, that a side by side comparison with the uniform colour and the plane’s wing tip, you would find two quite different shades of blue.
Being primarily preoccupied with the windmills when I took the above picture, I only later discovered the wing tip was in the frame. Noticing that, for the first time, the SAS blue brand colour made sense to me. Right above the clouds, you see a very clear and bright sky that only becomes darker, the higher up you get in the atmosphere. Contrast that with the white windmills, you have the sharp, medium-dark and vivid blue SAS colour.
As many colourists and artists would claim, it’s the light and time of the day together with atmospheric conditions that defines a colour. My hypothesis is therefore that this particular shade of blue only exists at CPH!
Interessant observasjon,at du hadde tid til å komme med slike fine tanker. Jeg er på flyplasser opptatt med å finne meg til rette med nye omgivelser og gå til riktig gate.