Tango Alpha

There is NO plan to refurbish LN-RKP – according to Eivind Roald, when I asked him about the matter at the Meet & Greet in CPH.

He refers to the limited time, the A/C is needed without saying directly, that the plane will be sold in two-three years.

And he gets a bit polemic asking if I won’t prefer to fly LN-RKP instead of getting stranded somewhere.

Well if it was a real spare aircraft seldom used... But it flies all the time. A quick check: 3 CPH-EWR rotations the last week.

highupinthesky

So if you were in Eivind Roald's position. Would you spend a couple of mill. on refurbishing the bird, knowing it will be sold to scrapping when the first A350 arrives?

SK AAR

I agree. If the intention is to sell the bird once the A359 is delivered, it doesn't make sense to refurbish the aircraft now. And let us face it: for the majority of pax it doesn't make any difference whether it is LN-RKP or some other aircraft - maybe the pax in Plus get annoyed, but people forget. For pax in C and Y, the difference is too insignificant to make a fuss about, let alone choose a different carrier (unless of course other carriers offer lower fare...)

fassy

Sure it makes financial no sense for them. But the snobbish answer just fits the profile. I would have expect nothing less insulting - probably was already his best manners.

I think we all agree that as a spare aircraft to fill in occasional there is no problem. But for me it looks much more like they have the spare plane Scheduled for the regular rotations lately.

For me, I do avoid booking the 340s if possible or chose some other carrier for my regular SFO trip. Last time to SFO I was lucky but I'm not taking that gamble every time...

Tango Alpha

a) I am not Eivind Roald
b) I didn’t take any position on this. Just (tried to) refer loyally what the SAS-boss said. And pointed out to him (and the FT audience here) that LN-RKP is hardly a spare aircraft but a lottery coupon.

BTW LN-RKP is off today (75 minutes late) as SK 901 this evening and is scheduled to run CPH-ORD tomorrow.

CPH-Flyer

The interesting question is really, would there be as many cancellations/serious delays as there are LN-RKP rotations? If the answer to that is yes, then either they did over schedule or they scheduled with LN-RKP in operational mind....

highupinthesky

It's a little funny to follow the complaints around not refurbishment of LN-RKP. I remember the time before SAS got the bird. Back then the complaints was around lots of cancellations. I wonder what you would complain about if the bird was refurbished?

I'm not at all speaking for SAS, but honestly if the biggest problem with SAS is the missing refurbishment of a spare bird, which operates 2-3 days a week in a rotation schedule which involves a total of 15 birds + the spare, then SAS is a pretty good airline IMHO.

Try fly norwegian. Then you can get some real issues to complain about. Specially if you get delayed. Just remember the 100+ pax who was left in Nice when a B787 had an engine failure more than 24 hours before. This incident is only a couple of weeks old.

fassy

Wrong assumption. I book SK as part of the *A since they can just rebook me on another carrier with a decent J product. LX, OS, AC and even LH J are fine and way better then LN-RKP. If they want to get $$$ for J class fare they have to keep up their end of the deal.

highupinthesky

Why don't you just book on one of the other *A carrier in the first place.

fassy

Mostly schedule and routing constraints- and that if I don't get the LN-RKP the J hard product is definitely superior to UA, AC, LH and some degree OS and LX.

(plus some of my customers have SK as preferred carrier and as Freelancer im bound to their will)

Tango Alpha

Strange question.

Who says it is the biggest problem?

SuperFlyBoy

Bad comparision.

Norwegian is an LCC.

SK is *supposed* to be a full-fare carrier - although at times it has pretended to be both. (Even now, I think!)

If one were buying business class tickets with an expectation of the product as advertised by them, one should receive that product - and not another.

highupinthesky

All airlines have older aircraft where the cabin don't have the same layout or standard as the newer once, and they are using these as spare. Over the last 2 years, I've made 8 long haul round trips with LH to a destination SK doesn't fly too. I don't think I've been in the same bird twice, and the standard has varied a lot. Some of the birds e.g don't have first class at all.

fassy

All LH planes have the same business class cabin hard product.

True, some have lost the First cabin but only a few destinations are a problem where you might have booked First and a plane without First might be swapped in. And in those cases that happens weeks before leaving time for reschedule.

highupinthesky

That's not true. In at lease one incident it was announced shortly before boarding that they had switched aircraft, which resulted in some passengers had to be downgraded to eco. I can't recall whether there were downgrades from first and business too. IMHO. that's worse than having to live with flying on LK-RKP.