SAS has been expanding quite a lot to the US recently. Last spring they launched flights from Stockholm to Los Angeles and Copenhagen to Boston. Later in 2016 they 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 long-haul destination for Scandinavians. Maybe SAS was waiting for Norwegian to test the markets before committing themselves? 😉
In any case, SAS just announced that they will be adding flights from Stockholm to Miami this fall. The flights will only operate once a week, on Sundays, starting October 29, 2017. The schedule will be as follows:
SK957 Stockholm to Miami departing 9:25AM arriving 2:15PM
SK958 Miami to Stockholm departing 4:05PM arriving 7:35AM (+1 day)
The route will be operated by an A330-300. The aircraft will be taken from the OSL/CPH-MIA routes, which will decrease from thrice to twice weekly. Overall, this represents a decrease in capacity to Miami for SAS. Regardless, the airline isn’t great when it comes to award availability, though in theory they have some nice rates in their own Eurobonus program.
In addition, SAS have announced that they will be upgrading their Copenhagen to Boston route to an A330-300. This flight was previously served by a PrivatAir 737-700 with angled seats in business class. I’m happy to see the 737 go since the A330 hard product is far superior and features SAS Plus. According to the press release, this will represent a 55% capacity increase, even though the frequency is reducing from 6 to 3 times weekly.
SAS has a solid onboard product nowadays and is clearly trying to compete with Norwegian’s rapid expansion. More flights provide healthy competition, and I’m excited to see more capacity between Scandinavia and the US. Now the interesting question remains: will SAS pull all long-haul operations from Sweden if the government passes its proposed aviation tax?
Have you flown SAS long-haul? What did you think?
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