SAS hasbeen expanding quite a lot to the US recently. Last springthey launched flights from Stockholm to Los Angeles and Copenhagen to Boston. Later in 2016they also launched flights from Oslo and Copenhagen to Miami. I’m a little surprised how slow their US expansion has been though. Apart from Thailand, the US is the top…
Continue reading: SAS Adds Flights From Stockholm To Miami, Upgrades Boston Route To A330
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SAS publishes good fares to North America from time-to-time-- I once did ARN - SFO for $330 round trip. Their fleet is pretty old, though.
their lie-flat business class seats are very good. Somewhat impractical since it's very easy to get things crushed by the seat, and it's very hard to get in and out of the seat once it's reclined even a bit - nevertheless, it was comfortable.
Too bad the food is totally atrocious. The business class food I had the other day flying EWR-CPH was probably the worst food I've ever eaten on a plane, and worse than anything United or Delta have ever put on my tray in economy class.
To give you an idea, the gnocchi were so dry that they crumbled into a sand-like substance. Meanwhile, the sauce was just a block of congealed cream. There were also two broccoli pieces that looked like they had survived a nuke. They came by with a cart that had all the meals on it, and I'd actually selected the one that looked least bad. The appetizers were almost acceptable. It's just a lowcost carrier and not quite ready for primetime, and I would gladly pay a premium to fly LH or Austrian or UA or any other airline instead of SAS.
interesting. I scored an award for September that is somewhat insane but goes TXL-BRU-CPH-IAD. The longhaul leg is on the SAS A330. The short legs on Brussels. The odd route is the price I am paying to avoid UA and their crappy business class. Booked using Aeroplan a few months ago.
Stockholm - Miami business class will be filled with DJs going to play Miami clubs and festivals!
These once/week flights always make me wonder why an airline would go through all of the trouble of doing the logistics for a flight while only capturing customers who want to stay exactly 7 or 14 days. Wouldn't it be much easier to increase loads with more frequencies?
I was able to book an award for 2 on SAS from CPH-ORD about two months ahead. At the time there was pretty good availability overall from CPH/ARN to multiple destinations in the US.
Unless there is literally no alternative, I wouldn't take any flight that operates tless than 5x weekly. I've been stuck before waiting for the "next flight" that is 2-3 days later. No thanks, I'd rather connect with a carrier that goes at least daily.
Doug - A large proportion of travellers will want to stay somewhere for full weeks, and those that don't can still connect on the return/outbound as they currently do (between Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo they fly from Miami daily).
It wouldn't necessarily be easier to increase loads with more frequency. If they doubled the number of flights but only 50% more passengers were attracted, that would greatly decrease the loads. Presumably they are starting once a week as they aren't convinced there's a market (while Scandinavians do indeed like to visit America, there isn't that many of them and they have many airline choices!).
@Simon- all the major european DJs fly private. I WISH they flew like us normal folks-would love to meet some of the DJs, i love EDM
I thought the service was daily before, with it being 3x weekly from CPH and 4x from OSL. I flew CPH-MIA-CPH in February, and in both directions, economy was not full and neither was SAS plus (not even close).
SAS Eurobonus is a semi-decent program. It's easy to use the points for upgrades on SAS flights, if available. That's basically the only way so far I've used my points. It's in fact the only reason why I keep flying SAS to the U.S. instead of Norwegian.
Nice update, thanks for sharing. Hope to see many more posts from you.
Regards, Alastair Majury