Scandinavian Airlines System Review

Scandinavian Airlines System is partially owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the rest is in private hands.

We were very disappointed in our test flight from Geneva to Stockholm. Is SAS a low cost airline? Not in price, as we paid a huge amount for the ticket—nearly six times the easyJet fare!

One might have expected a complimentary coffee but, no, it is all charged for. To make matters worse, the aircraft was showing signs of age and was somewhat dirty.

flickr image by Deanster1983

The problem with one test flight, is that it may not represent the ‘true feel’ of the airline on ‘most’ occasions, so we would welcome comments from more frequent flyers with SAS.

One of the reasons for disappointment was that the author has used the SAS lounges many times, as they are offered to other partner airlines, such as Thai and other Star Alliance partners. They are good and have some of best business-level services of all the lounges we have used. Staff at each SAS lounge are always most welcoming.

So why so unfriendly on the SAS service from Geneva to Stockholm? It was a Sunday evening. Could that be the reason? Or is it their normal practice to be offhand and ignore customers. If SAS want to be a low cost airline, then they should study some of the better ones like Air Asia, where the cabin staff is anything but offhand.

As we only tested one flight, some extra research was needed, however, that raised a high number of negative comments, many of which were centred on the lack of any service on SAS European services. Skytrax have SAS listed as 3-star airline; the same as Air Niugini, another airline not our best list.

SAS is part of the Star Alliance network, and their loyalty club is branded as ‘Eurobonus’. This alliance does provide a huge number of connections for passengers.

On the positive side, SAS claims to be working towards being the most environmentally-focused airline. This is one area that does make it stand out from other airlines. SAS introduced green landings and tries, where possible, to use that landing technique to save fuel. SAS conducted a trans-Atlantic ‘green flight’ between New York and Stockholm back in 2007.

SAS encourages all passengers to offset their carbon impact, with the revenue going directly to the Carbon Neutral Company.

SAS was the first airline to employ a female pilot; and the first airline to feature an in-flight exercise programme. Their main hubs are at Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm airports.

Overall, it seems that we need to do more tests on Scandinavian Airlines, as there must be more to this airline than we have experienced. We really welcome comments on SAS, so please add yours below or email us, which will help us update our review. Maybe we might even hear from the SAS press team?!