Originally Posted by
FlyingMoose
SAS has been rebooking or refunding passengers, I doubt many people completely had their travel or vacation ruined. Perhaps they got there a day late. The bookings I've seen rebooked all got to their destination the same day, most just a few hours late, some on a better airline and product, one even 2 hours earlier.
Most years, if this had happened, we could've easily waited out the strike an extra week (maybe two) in Sweden. Unfortunately, this year, we had too many things going on this week at home that we could not change; if we had missed them, things would've been unpleasant in my household for weeks/months. This uncertainty added a lot of stress and anxiety to my family. TATL availability was already scarce this summer, and the knock-on effects of a week of cancellations (at roughly 1600 seats per day each way) means availability on OAL pretty much has become non-existent for the rest of this week. I feel fortunate that four full-flex Y tickets appeared out of nowhere on UA's website last weekend for us to get out of ARN on the day desired; we left ARN an hour earlier than when we were supposed to, and we arrived in DEN an hour later than originally planned. The one inconvenience was that we had to leave Mrs. Swede's hometown about 12 hours earlier than planned; instead of a night bus, we had to take a train, Arlanda Express, and also pay for a hotel room (which I had booked two weeks ago on the chance that our travel plans needed to change).
Almost all rebooking options proposed by SAS (before I got disconnected) involved an overnight stay somewhere else in Europe before flying back to the US. It wasn't a risk we were willing to take given that even my backup plan involved a VIE-MUC flight that was over an hour late 5 of the 7 previous days (which would've meant missing our TATL flight).
I'm also reading stories on some private FB groups about people stuck in Scandinavia trying to get back to the US who are distraught because they cannot get home in a reasonable amount of time nor can they afford new tickets. I think situations like this is the biggest reason why I buy travel insurance. The amount of money that travel insurance will now reimburse me for finding my own way home has recouped the cost of any and all policies I have ever bought in the past 18 years (and then some).