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?
Nice update, thanks for sharing. Hope to see many more posts from you.
Regards, Alastair Majury
When is the upgauge scheduled for Boston-Oslo?
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.
@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
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...
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!).
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.
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.
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?
Stockholm - Miami business class will be filled with DJs going to play Miami clubs and festivals!
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.
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...
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.
ELAL starting service from Miami
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/113164
http://www.vosizneias.com/268686/2017/05/03/jerusalem-el-al-israel-airlines-to-start-nonstop-flights-to-miami/
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.