Airport-managed lounges discontinued for SAS passengers.
 

I have received information from my travel agent about discontinuation of quite a few lounges:

From 1 Jan 2017 these will be discontinued:
Lounges: BLL, DBV, DUB, NCE, NRT, RIX, SPU, VCE, VNO
Fasttrack DUB, MXP, LIN, FCO, VNO

From 1 Feb 2017 these will be discontinued:
Lounges: AAL, ABZ, AGP, ALC, BCN, BHX, BLQ, BUD, EDI, FCO, FAO, GDN, KEF, KRK, LED, LHR, LIN, LPA, LPI, MAN, MLA, NCL, OLB, OTP, PMI, PMO, POZ, PRG, PSA, TLL, TLV, VLC, WRO
Fasttrack: GVA, AGP

SAS Business, SAS Plus ir Eurobonus EBG+ lounges and fast tracks from 2017:

SAS and Star Alliance lounges:
ARN, CPH, OSL, GOT, CDG, HEL, ORD, EWR, AES, TOS, TRD, LLA, MMX
ATH, BRU, DUS, FRA, GVA, HAM, LHR, MUC, MXP, SKG, STR, TXL, WAW, VIE, ZRH

SAS Business HKG, NRT, PEK, SHA, BOS IAD, LAX, MIA ORD, SFO

Fasttrack: ARN, CPH, OSL, GOT, AAL, AES, BGO, BLL, BOO, SVG, TRD
HEL, ABZ, AMS, ATH, BCN, BHX, BLQ, BRE, BRU, CDG, DUS, FRA, GDN, HAJ, HAM, INN, KRK, LHR, MAN, MUC, NCL, PMI, POZ, PRG, RIX, SKG, STR, TLL, SZG, WAW, WRO, VCE, VIE, ZRH

SAS Business: LAX, MIA, BOS, IAD, EWR, ORD, SFO, NRT

I don't see how acess to a *A lounge in LHR and NRT could be discontinued for a *G?

My understanding is that it's for SK flights only. LHR by the way is still on (see lists in black). Looks like they are discontinuing every non-*A lounge. That explains why they won't offer lounge at MIA, KEF or LIN but will offer at ORD or EWR.

Weird that this has not been announced. I find it difficult to believe this is an erroneous email.

Brief comparison with that list shows that all airport managed lounges will be given up
List of lounges

Rapid cost-cutting measure and (re)turn to café vouchers?

I am confused. Does this mean that EB elites cannot access these lounges when flying SK, but could access them when flying other *A airlines? What about other *G flying SK flights and wanting to use these lounges?

Recently DL did something similar. They eliminated access to third party contract lounges for SkyTeam elites flying DL operated flights in coach.

Of the lounges on the list that I have been to, many will not be missed. As Oliver pointed out, ceasing access to the lounges in NRT and LHR seem very odd.

Maybe that refers to the Plaza Premium Lounge in LHR and the KAL Lounge in NRT.

I understand that it costs maybe too much money for cheap Y tickets in combination with *G, but that you drop it also for Plus tickets?!

Pretty short notice... Still nothing from SAS themselves, even on their website?

These are the lounges sas always have had. nothing have changes. exept the Heatrow one are gone.
All sas lounges are available for plus/ business travelers.
they never had lounges anywhere else that in scandinavia/ewr/Chicago.
All gold and diamond holders fcause always have axsess to any staralliance lounge anywhere in the world,no matter what booking class u have.

I think this explains a devaluation of diners cards terms earlier this year. Likely, many of these lounges are accessible using DC, so there is hope that some will actually keep DC cards. At least I see this working in interest of DC. Not sure about SK.

It is about the contract lounges... lots of smaller airports do not have *A lounges but lounges contracted by the operating carrier for their status and business class customers

While I won't miss too many of those MAN, DUB, WRO and KRK will be missed :(

It's a pity. SAS will be the only *A airline without access to lounge in my home airport.
I will not fly with them anymore ;-(

This is very poor from SAS. This year I used fast track and lounge in VNO, DUB, LIN, MAN. All gone next year. Even the fast track in GVA is going, what the hell? At least there are Swiss lounges there which they cannot keep us out of.

Time to shift more business to Lufthansa perhaps?

Here's an official document from SAS supporting (and explaining the changes in full): https://www.sas.se/upload/pdf/Lounge...Track-2017.pdf

That's a pretty harsh cost cutting seen from the passenger experience perspective. But I guess it does add up pretty quickly, what is SK charged 10 to 20 euro per visit?

Let's hope they know what they are doing. This will probably come with some lost revenue and then it is a question if this still was a good idea in the end. ;)

EDIT: And I'm curious if they will announce anything or just change it on the web silently. I don't think they can put any good news into the message so I assume they will just do it as silently as possible and shift the complaints to CS and staff at the affected outstations.

I attached the file here for reference.

And how about Star Golds who frequently fly SAS on full fare Plus tickets? Not really fun to be without lounge when you've paid €1000+ for a ticket.

I think the biggest issue will be now that it's so close to the yearend, a lot of people will find out themselves on 02JAN, EBG+s, *Gs and Pluses in Billund, Dubrovnik, Dublin, Nice, Riga, Split, Venice, Vilnius when they will be denied access. Hopefully, they will have more time to inform ppl before 01FEB when further limitations kick in.

And maybe they will have time to make sure Palma de Mallorca can fit in one of the boxes in the presentation. I can imagine how quickly they did this.

What a time to switch back to SAS 😄😄

Since I mainly fly Longhaul I wont be too bothered being Star gold abd having 4 Star golds in my family but many will find this a VERY bad development! Perhaps more upgrades available to plus as one of its major benefits is going in many airports :)

I do have a sneaking feeling this will bite SK in the butt :(

Sorry for my confusion here but does this mean that if I fly SAS Plus LHR-ARN I can't access the lounge? or does it mean that I should use the Lufthansa/United lounges rather than the Plaza one SAS usually suggest?

I'm definitely not going to miss the [Aspire] lounge in BHX whereas it's good to see that fast track agreements at both GDN & BHX itself have been left intact, especially at GDN where, first in the morning (mostly on Mondays), queues in the regular security area are shockingly long...

G

I read the new list that there will be access in LHR for Plus passengers without *G to at least one of the two lounges. SK can decide which one you have to use in this case.

In LHR SK had contracted the PP lounge to admit SAS customers (EBG/D in M, or regular Plus). This contract ends next year. EBG and EBD will still be able to into any of the 4 *A lounges when booked on SAS departing from T2 that day. AFAIK SAS Plus pax without status still count as C for LH lounges, so they will be able to use the Lufthansa business lounge in T2 A.

SAS Plus customers going to/from East Asia just took it on the chin over lounge access.

Some customers in January and maybe even February are going to be in for a nasty surprise when they find themselves at risk of missing flights due to the cancellation of priority security screening for their trip.

SK has until quite recently advertised the lounge access for Plus in Narita in their email news letters here in Japan.

It must be a quite sudden change of mind to remove this.


On a separate note, TLV is mentioned as loosing fast track. Did they forget to cancel the contract when they cancelled the route?? ;)

What I don't understand there is that on the one hand SK knows that Japan is a special market (free drinks with the first meal) where you can still get decent revenue (I assume since NRT lacks offers). But then on the other hand it doesn't seem like they take care of their local well paying customers in this issue.

Premium security line contracts can last longer than the routes, but the variable payment (per passenger use) for the line at an airport with cancelled service drops to zero even as the contract remains applicable. Much the same goes for the lounge contracts at airports with canceled route service. Having a contract's terms still applicable but no longer utilized doesn't necessarily mean the contract is still resulting in the airline seeing higher costs than if the contract were cancelled before the expiration date listed in a contract at time of initial signing.

In some cases perhaps the lounge operator and the fast track security line contract may be from the same party and/or have a shared contract, but the term for the time period of the contract for the lounge may be the same or different than the term for the time period of the contract for priority ground services.

Yep, but why even mention a destination that does not see any flights? Just let it go out quietly, and let the cut seem one line shorter.

Perhaps someone wanted to show their proverbial "boss" how extensively they were working to "save" the company money? :D

Year-end billing and bonus concerns are on mind at this time?

Or maybe they are planning to fly to TLV again......

It's a very long list of 'lost' lounges and as someone who likes lounges I'm not amused.

Where is AMS? I can't see it on the discontinued lounge list. :D

That would obviously save more. ;)

I came to the SAS forum to check whether they have a lounge agreement in KRK because I couldn't find any info on their website, guess I have my answer now.. Fortunately my flight is in January. I thought it was interesting that AMS is neither in the discontinued or in the updated list, not that the lounge there is anything to write home about.

The contracted Executive Lounge? SK is already annoyed at KL having eaten into Scandinavia and may not want to lose more customers to KL.

This looks like a drastic move to preserve cash. Is SK losing money again?

Also, how they want to differentiate against DY? DY Flex fares are lower (than Plus) and offer Fast Track (at least at ARN).

They showed a profit for the just reported fiscal year. But also stated that they would start a new round of cost reductions.

I guess this is the first step...

Very bad news, indeed. This move gives me more incentive to fly LH, LX and OS as UA*G. I was just planning a couple of trips to Spain, but I no do not see the point in paying for Plus BCN-CPH when there is neither fast track nor lounge access at BCN.

Some of the changes may be justified. The fast track and lounge at AAL are both poorly managed. I am no big fan of the BLL lounge either.

The changes are against most important customers - premium and frequent travelers. This group are familiar with products of SAS competitors, and will switch to different airline. SAS accountants had lost the plot.

So can *G (SQ) flyers still use the Star Alliance operated lounges at LHR when travelling Y on SAS?

Apologies if this has been covered, just trying to make sense of the news.