SAS The Airline

SAS, which stands for Scandinavian Airlines System, are the joint flag carrier of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. They’re also a very old airline being founded in 1946. Firstly, it’s pretty unique for an airline to be shared between 3 separate countries. They even have a hub in all 3, the main hub in Copenhagen and 2 smaller hubs in Stockholm and Oslo. And if you look at their livery you’ll see a nod to the flags of all three countries on each aircraft. Currently SAS have a relatively large fleet of 135 aircraft serving destinations mostly in Europe and the US, plus a few in Asia like Seoul and Bangkok.

If you’ve read the aviation news recently though you might have heard that SAS have had a pretty tumultuous recent history… They’ve seemingly been on the verge of bankruptcy for over a decade. If you check out their share price history it doesn’t paint a happy picture. As recently as October 2023 their share price dropped by 95% as they announced another restructuring to prevent bankruptcy. Though it’s not all doom & gloom, Air France-KLM recently announced a major investment in SAS, hopefully bailing out the struggling airline. It could also mean interesting things for SAS, merging with Air France-KLM and abandoning the Star Alliance (which they’re a founding member of) in favour of SkyTeam. But that’s a topic for another article.

Ticket and Flight Details

SAS generally price themselves as a middle ground between budget airlines like Ryanair and full service airlines like KLM. I was able to find this ticket for pretty cheap, just €43.59 for a SAS GO (Economy) ticket. The ticket didn’t include seat selection or luggage, but I didn’t need either so was happy with the low price.

However, I did want to make a more interesting review, so decided to upgrade to SAS Plus (Business). They use a bidding system for upgrades. The lowest bid you can place is €60, but I went with €75 just to be safe. After placing a bid SAS will send you an email to let you know if you won or not. Upgrading was probably a mistake though as paying for SAS Plus upfront was only €60 than economy, so I basically wasted €15.

Also, the flight was just over 2 hours long so the upgrade was of debatable value. That being said there are a few good benefits of SAS Plus that might make it worth it to you:

• Priority check-in & security
• Lounge access, you can read the next section or check out my full review of the SAS Lounge at Oslo Airport here.
• Priority Boarding
• Free seat selection
• Free inflight meal, which turned out to be pretty good, more on that below.
• Free carryon and checked luggage

So basically like any other Business Class in Europe with one big exception! Unlike other European Airlines (BA, Air France, Lufthansa) they don’t block out the middle seat in Business Class. Since the seats are all exactly the same that means the actual inflight experience is basically the same as Economy. It might sound snobbish, but if I’m paying for business I expect to at least not have to rub elbows with the person next to me.

Oslo Airport & SAS Lounge

Oslo Airport is awesome in my opinion. One of the best in the world after a recent-ish refurbishment in 2017. From the several times I’ve been here now I’ve always found it to be very efficient, despite it serving an impressive 29 million people in 2019. Not as big as global airports like London Heathrow or Hong Kong, but still impressive given only 5.5 million people live in Norway. The airport is also one of the most beautiful out there, With massive open areas, an impressive wooden structure and floor to ceiling windows. Overall, it’s just a really nice airport.

I wrote a full review of the SAS Business Lounge at Oslo Airport here. So read that if you want a full review, here I’ll just cover it briefly. All SAS Plus passengers can enter with their boarding pass and overall it’s a good lounge with plenty of comfortable seating.

The food selection isn’t great, only cold options are available. But, if you like Norwegian-style food you’re in for a treat. If you don’t then this lounge might not be for you. I had breakfast here and just had some cheese and salad on crispbread. Not very exciting but I will give a special mention to the Norwegian Brown Cheese (though technically not actually cheese) which is some of my favourite cheese in the world.

Drink options are also fine, with your typical selection of soft drinks, juices, tea and coffee and a small self-serve bar. It’s definitely not the best lounge out there but it does the job. I would have liked them to have a shower. But I don’t think many people connect through Oslo Airport so it makes sense they don’t. I also found this private room which I spent most of my time in…

The Plane and Seat

Our plane today was a 6 month old Airbus A320neo with registration EI-SIX. It’s in SAS’s sleek new blue and silver livery. Plus the cabin felt very modern and fresh. Though surprisingly for such a young aircraft a lot of surfaces in the cabin were scratched and scuffed, so it didn’t actually feel that clean.

The seat itself is fine and sitting in seat 1F I had loads of leg room. If you’re sitting behind row 1 though legroom is just average, with 30-31″ seat pitch and 18″ width according to SeatGuru. My main gripe with this seat though is the lack of comfort. They use a slimline design and you might be able to tell from the picture… The seat back is rock solid, almost like a wooden plank with virtually no padding. I do like the fabric they use, but the lack of padding just means it is not comfortable for any flight over an hour.

Other than that there’s nothing in the SAS A320neo cabin to differentiate it from the countless other short haul aircraft out there. Besides perhaps the wooden bulkhead at the front, which gives me very Scandinavian vibes.

Food & Service

As part of the SAS Plus service you get a free meal and drink. There’s no choice, you just get what you’re given. But what we were given was very good. A Scandinavian-style smoked salmon with potato salad and cream cheese. Plus some crispbread on the side. You get it in a little paper box with wooden cutlery. Not as fancy as some airline’s business class. British Airways for example serve a ‘2 course’ meal on a tray with metal cutlery and a cloth napkin in Club Europe. But this meal did taste good and was a generous portion. I’m also pretty sure it’s the same meal that’s available for preorder on the regular economy menu. You just have to pay if you want it in Economy.

To drink you get a typical choice consisting of various soft drinks and alcohol. I just went for a cup of coffee and water, which was served with ice and a slice of lemon. It’s a slight upgrade over Economy, where they offer coffee & tea with as many refills as you want, but no alcohol or soft drinks.

Lastly after clearing everyone’s trays, some nice chocolates from Swedish brand Hedh Escalante. A nice tasty treat to finish a pretty good meal service.

Everything Else

Overall I found the cabin crew inflight to be very friendly and attentive. They gave me a refill of coffee so that’s cool. But besides saying hello and goodbye that was pretty much all the interaction I had with them. One slightly weird thing occurred before boarding though… We all filtered into the enclosed gate area. Then once the plane arrived they told everyone we had to leave. So after leaving the gate area, they started checking boarding passes before letting people in again one by one. Not really sure why they did this as there were more desks to check documents inside the waiting area. So to make everyone leave just seems like a waste of time.

Every seat has a menu, a brief extract of which is below. You can pay in a load of different currencies including points, which is interesting. But it’s not a very exciting menu and a bit on the expensive side.

Lastly, coming in to land at London Heathrow we got a fantastic view of London. Definitely a benefit of flying in to London. Not really relevant to this review but it’s a cool picture so I decided to include it.

Final Thoughts

Overall, SAS Plus is just fine. When comparing it to other European short haul Business Class that is. The main downside is that they don’t block the middle seat. Which is kind of a big downside as that plus the food are really the only things that make the flight experience better than Economy. So basically you’re paying double the Economy fare for priority boarding, lounge access, a meal and a chance to sit near the front. Whether that’s worth it is up to you. I can say for certain that SAS are vastly inferior to some global airlines like Singapore Airlines who offer lay flat seats on flights this length (my review here). But in the European market at least, they’re fine…

More from me…

If you enjoyed my SAS Plus Review, please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:

• British Airways Boeing 787 from Hong Kong to London – Avoid Economy Class!
• The Sofitel Luxembourg Review – Chic Business Hotel
• The Plaza Premium Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 2

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• The Platinum Card – You Receive 60,000 Membership Reward points after spending £6,000 in the first 3 months:  https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGPexG?XLINK=MYCP