Thoughts about SAS (Scandinavian Airlines)?

[Anonymous]

I’d like to book a trip to Copenhagen, and it looks like SAS is the only airline with direct flights from DC. It looks like they have very competitive base rates with upcharges for luggage, seat selection, etc. I’m OK with upcharges if the experience once you’ve paid them is good (reliable, efficient, courteous, generally on-time, etc.). Would love to hear about people’s experiences.

[Anonymous]

We flew them and it was fine. They allow you to bid into higher classes which allowed us to get reasonable biz class one way but would have been very expensive the other way.

One thing is that people complain about is that if you have a problem it can be a pain to deal with them — they aren’t very customer service oriented (not a slight to the cabin crew, more to the phone lines).

[Anonymous]

SAS is a mainstream airline, not a discount carrier, and has normal amenities. The one time I flew them, however, I felt a bit squeezed by the huge vikings sitting on either side of me. Any flight to Scandinavia is likely to have that issue - seats were standard size, not especially small.

[Anonymous]

We've flown they to Europe twice, once to/from Italy via Copenhagen in 2022 and again this year to Amsterdam and home from Copenhagen.

They were great both times. Even when a flight was delayed due to weather and we missed our connection, by the time we landed, they already had us booked on the next flight out. We just had to walk up to their customer service desk and pick up the new boarding passes. They also let you buy passes to their lounge in Copenhagen, which is a really nice lounge and great place to hang if you have a long layover or wait.

[Anonymous]

My sister and I flew SAS to Sweden a few years ago, and they were fine. The flights were as comfortable as one could expect in coach - and the planes we flew had a 2-4-2 configuration, so we were happy to pay a little extra so we could have a little section of 2 together. (for the very short Copenhagen to Stockholm flight we didn't bother with advance seat selection and were still able to get two seats together when we checked in)

We each checked a bag, and I don't remember paying for that, so that may have changed.

On the return, our initial flight was canceled by a pilots' strike, so they booked us on a flight 3 days later, and they airline reimbursed us for our hotel/food for those extra days. As it turns out, the strike was still going on on our new departure day, so we took the train from Stockholm to Copenhagen (only the *Swedish* pilots were on strike, so flights originating in Denmark were fine) and went home from there. SAS refunded the Stockholm-Copenhagen flight we didn't use and paid for our train ticket. I'm assuming they did all of this because of legal requirements and not out of the goodness of their hearts, but it was still nice to know that we wouldn't be out those expenses.

[Anonymous]

I should add that my sister and I are planning to go back to Sweden in a couple of years, and we would happily fly SAS again.

[Anonymous]

My comapny used to have an office there, so I've flown SK925/926 (the CPH-IAD flights) at least 30 times. I've also flown their fligths from EWR and ORD -- the ORD flight is later so works better if you don't want to get up too early on your way back.

They are perfectly fine. Not amazing, but nothing wrong witht them either. As for paying for bags, they offer different level sof economy like go and light or whatever they call it these days. Book directly on their site so you know exactly what you're getting.

[Anonymous]

United used to have direct from IAD, did you check it? But, SAS is fine..no better or worse. Flight attendants are usually nicer.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, all—very helpful, especially since the impressions are so uniform.