Don't fly SAS (Scandinavian)
 

I was so angry with my experience with Scandinavian Airlines, I had to look for an online forum an open an account just to warn others about the experience I just had.

Having paid a lot of money to take three flights from Toronto to Manchester (I didnt want a 5 hour layover just to use two flights) I was 'hoping' for a long but pleasant journey. What I got was anything but.

Two and a half hours worth of delays waiting on the tarmac (BTW, SAS say they are the worlds most punctual airline) we got into Manchester waiting for 30 minutes for our luggage. I didnt expect I would be waiting another 36 hours to get a hold of them. What aggregated me the most is that I could never get a hold of SAS via email, nor would they answer one of their many telephone numbers.

When I got a hold of one of their operators 6 days later, they was no option for me to get a refund for my return flight, any compensation or a courtesy upgrade. Basically, I was told to go to hell.

No SAS, you go to HELL!!!

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Thanks for the rant

Welcome to FT! Are you by any chance related to fedupwithlufthansa?

Sorry to hear about the bad experience. As for the rant:
(1) The delay on the tarmac might not have been SAS fault.
(2) Luggage does get lost. A 30 minute wait is not that long in my experience, albiet frustrating none-the-less. Were you given an overnight kits and a lost luggage reference. It should contain contact information. In my experience (and sadly I have had lots of lost luggage with SAS) they customer service has been easy to reach and helpful. Still, that is no excuse for a 3 day delay.
(3) Keep your receipts from necessary items you needed when the luggage was lost. Depending on the type of ticket, you should be able to claim some of the money back for reasonable purchases.

My advice, calm down and try to contact them again. See what is possible regarding the luggage and fly your inbound as planned. Who knows, maybe things go well and your opinion changes.

PS-Probably belongs in the SK Forum.

dontflysas, welcome to FlyerTalk. The thread is being moved to the SAS forum as it is specific to that airline. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Since when did SAS start flying from Toronto ?:D

Welcome to Flyertalk.

I don't see why anyone should give you anything here..

You waited 30 minutes for your luggage, it happens all over the world every day. I rarely check luggage, but I did for a tradeshow in Vegas and it takes at least 45 minutes at that airport.

Also, delays on the tarmac usually has to do with weather or ATC delays, it happens to all of us multiple times a day.

Out of curiosity, I tried to call SASs North American toll free number and they picked up the phone immediately.

You expect that everything should run smoothly in air travel in the winter??

I think it's time for a reality check

I think the OP said that their luggage was lost for 36 hours, and it took them 30 minutes to figure out that it was missing in the first place.

Post # 1 by someone logged in as dontflysas ..... who rants about SAS. :rolleyes:

Besides ... SAS does not even fly to Canada .... why book with them?

Welcome to FT, dontflysas and Merry Christmas.

May I suggest you give SK another try — hopefully there won't be any external factors outside SK's control affecting your next trip and you'll have a better understanding of SK's actual product, and why SK is considered to be one of the better airlines in the world.

If I stopped flying an airline because they (or in the OP's case, maybe a partner since SAS doesn't fly to Toronto) lost my luggage, I'd be driving everywhere. Requesting a refund of the return portion of your ticket because your baggage was delayed? Seriously, what airline would do that? If you stop flying a particular airline because they won't refund your ticket, you won't have anyone left to fly with. We're probably all better off if you don't fly SAS again since no aircraft can hold enough cheese to go with your whine...

Creating an account just to whine about delayed luggage is childish. You remind me of the American (the nationality, not the airline...) gentleman on the CPH-ARN flight who complained about the legroom being worse than on DL and the free food offered in Economy Extra not being to his liking. I turned around and asked him: "So, what kind of free food to you get in economy on 1-hour DL flights?" Judging by him suddenly shutting up, I guess he got the point...

Welcome to FT dontflysas.

One isolated experience doesn't mean an airline is horrible. I'm hardly an SAS apologist, I believe there are numerous reasons to berate them, but your story doesn't seem to be one of them.

I'd be curious to know what your exact routing was? I'm guessing something like Lufthansa or Air Canada: Toronto - Frankfurt
LH or SAS: Frankfurt - Copenhagen
SAS: CPH - Manchester

A couple of things should be noted, in no particular order:
First, you might want to check EC 261/2004 with regards to compensation for delayed luggage. In any case, I believe you'll be able to claim back reasonable expenses from SAS for items bought while your luggage was missing.

Second, assuming you called SAS on their (expensive) UK number after you arrived in MAN, I find it difficult to believe they didn't pick up for six days. I've had to call it for some reason or another for every SAS flight I've taken from the UK. I've never waited for more than five minutes. What number did you try calling?

Third, a 30 minute wait at Manchester Terminal 1 is perfectly normal. Luggage (again, in my experience) tends to arrive on belt ~25 min after you get there.

Fourth, while I haven't independently verified SAS's claims of being the most punctual airline within Europe, I've had fewer delays with them than other European airlines I've flown. But it's the time of year for chaos. You might want to look through the news from the past week or so and read up on the hundreds (thousands?) of passengers stranded thanks to the weather-induced chaos at London-Heathrow, Frankfurt and Pairs CDG. Sometimes shít happens, and sometimes it's not the fault of the airline.

Fifth, though being without your luggage is stressful, expecting an upgrade for a bag with which you were repatriated with in 1½ days isn't reasonable.
Also with regards to missing luggage, it was your choice to take three flights instead of two. More flights = greater chance something goes wrong, greater chance luggage goes AWOL.
Two flights would also have avoided SAS entirely...

(Also, it probably didn't aggregate you, though it might have aggravated you)

My interpretation of the op was SK ex-US to CPH followed by CPH-MAN. But now when I read it again, I see that he never said that. Otherwise, the luggage was most certainly delayed by some other other airline than SK, and the complaining makes even less sense.

well, all your comments are well put and reasonable, but our new friend donotflysas is so distressed by the experience that they did not bother to connect since they wrote their post...so clearly was not too interested in the feedback!!!

I believe that anyone should have flown a very minimum of 100 sectors on a particular airline to be entitled to have a qualified opinion about them (especially in terms of punctuality and baggage). Anything less than that is just nothing.

SK code shares with AC from YYZ to CPH where one may connect from CPH to MAN on SK metal. This is the only routing that I can think of with SK from YYZ to MAN but this itinerary does not make sense.

If the problem was at YYZ, it's really an AC issue, not SK.