Scandinavian Airlines is the national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It uses its main…read morehub in Copenhagen to route visitors to the major cities around Europe. I had the opportunity to take two flights out of Copenhagen on SAS, and found it to be an OK experience overall, and worth the reduced ticket cost of the SAS flight. It definitely reminded me of a Low Cost Carrier, which is what I guess it might be now.
SAS was a founding member of the Star Alliance (along with the United Airlines and others) in 1997, but as part of the KLM-AirFrance investment in 2023, it switched to the SkyTeam alliance. This meant that my Sky Priority status on Delta transferred over, and made it an easy choice for my Paris trip.
Night 1, flight to Frankfurt: I was supposed to fly out of Copenhagen to Paris, but missed the flight so was rerouted to Frankfurt. I was the last person to check-in so the gate agent held the airport shuttle for me while I raced to the gate. We flew on a CRJ900, meaning my carryon luggage would not fit on the overhead, and instead would be checked plane-side (which I actually like a lot, since it still bypasses baggage claims). The plane fits 90 passengers, 4 across. It had no first class seats (meaning all seats were the same width), but the premium seats upfront had a bit more legroom/pitch. Most seats were taken, with mostly people traveling for business on weeknight...I ended up getting an aisle seat. It was a short flight, 86 minutes in the air and had a simple beverage service. There were two flight attendants on-board, and one of them had an attitude (or a bias against people who got on late?). She skipped over me (as I was looking towards her) when she was asking for drinks, and only when I firmly asked "I would like hot tea please" as she turned her back after serving my seatmate, did she turn around, and with a smirk, pour me a cup. I tried to avoid her the rest of the flight.
Night 9, flight to Los Angeles: In 1954, Scandinavian Airlines began the world's first trans-polar route, flying initially to Los Angeles, so it was kinda cool to take the same route. Due to some bad planning on my part, I arrived at the departing gate after boarding had already commenced. It was a full flight (2-4-2 seating configuration) , but there was no problem finding space for my one carry-on. It was an 11 hour flight. It did have purchasable wi-fi (they are advertising free wi-fi just like Delta by end of year, but didn't see it on any of my flights), working charging outlet and USB outlet. We were served one main meal about an hour after takeoff, multiple tea/coffee service, and a snack (pizza puff) about 2 hours before landing. The flight attendants were the same as the other SAS flights I took: 'warm' or 'relaxed' would not be a term to describe them, but rather 'regimented' and 'formal'. They had a schedule and tasks to do, and they wouldn't hesitate to bark out orders to accomplish it: delivering 2 meals, 4 beverage services, and frequent trash pickup...along with making sure everything was ready for landing. One thing I did notice was that they tried to do things for the Economy Plus passengers faster and more frequently than for standard economy. For example, picking up done meal trays took a long time for us (which is a big deal since it limits your ability to move around or get out of your seat)...even after they had picked up for the Plus passengers, they didn't come to us until a bit later. I noticed one passenger tried to give his tray, and the attendant wouldn't take it. It was just best to limit interactions and keep things curt and simple. On this flight, there was a lot more choices for movies and tv shows so time passed a lot faster than the coming over flight. THe flight landed 40 minute early, and it was a breeze to go through immigration due to Global Entry (30 seconds).
