SAS stops flying to HEL
 

As from the beginning of March SAS stops flying to HEL (http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2012/0...i_3240154.html). Blue1 will take care of the traffic between Finland and Scandinavia. Could that mean the end of SAS lounge in HEL?

I would guess that there the lounge stays, but might change owner/operator. There better be a *-lounge in Helsinki as I have just become *G :D

Why would they close the lounge? Call it a blue1 or StarAlliance lounge, but it´s not going away.

One begins to wonder whether it's SAS that's ultimately going away

Better use your points asap then.

It seems SK will continue operating CPH-TKU for a while even after February, but that will eventually change to a Cimber wetlease (still an SK flight, not KF).

Anyway this is kind of historical, has SK ever not operated to HEL before?

From passengers point of view I guess the biggest change is that there is no longer J class out of HEL.

I think it makes sense that SK stops flying CPH-HEL. Why should there be 2 airlines that belong to the smae company flying the same route?

I never fly with Blue1 or to Finland but out of interest, does this mean there will be only Finnish crews and no service in Scandinavian languages?

Is this a way reduce the need of expensive cabin personnel from Scandinavian countries?

The Finnish crew should be able to speak Swedish. I don´t think Blue1 is paying a lot less than SAS for their crew. Yes, it´s true that it´s a young airline with less historical baggage than SAS, less powerful unions etc, but it´s not like Finnish wages are that low.

Well, not completely. SK 1714 / 1715 will continue although (like CPH-TKU) switch to a CRJ 200 operated by Cimber.

As said. There is virtually no difference with cabin personnel wages between Finland and Scandinavia. But there is lot of difference with Blue1 and SAS overhead costs as Blue1 is new generation airline.

IMO Blue1 do still offer better customer experience on board than it's mother SAS. There is still something left from it's early days spirit of a young challenger... allthough slowly they seem to be adopting the some bad habits of the mother.

And... yes. You can get still your sandwich ordered (and paid!) in Swedish :) It is just one hour flight so interaction with the FAs is minimal.

But no C class... and how is their Danish and Norwegian?

No C (on board, you can buy a business ticket, but all you get for that is the lounge, luggage quota and points) but there will be Blue1 Premium, which is pretty much equivalent to SAS Y (Economy Extra). On the other hand that is the way it already is on the intra Scandinavian routes (and KF has already been operating OSL alone for a while AFAIK, so same thing there). The good news is the Optiontown upgrades that are available on Blue1, if you are in M.

No Norwegian or Danish though, apart from what can be understood through Swedish (well, I guess there might be a KF attendant somewhere that speaks other Scandinavian languages, but a rarity for sure).

So how "One coffee please" or "It's 3 euros, thank you" are different in Danish and Norwegian from Swedish? :)

Haha, even "gratis" (free of charge) would be understood all around..

Actually, the biggest language problems between Danes, Swedes and Norwegians would be swedes having trouble understanding danish. You need to be tuned to danish intonation and diphtong, that can take a while.

I guess most CA speaks "scandinavian" or "svorsk" where you just remove/replace the words that are most odd for each language.