pjck

I travelled recently by SAS to Spain via Scandinavia (Oslo and Stockholm). We have good flights and good landings - I don't know if the conditions were so convenient or the pilots are so well trained (or both).
However I am surprised by their customer service - I mean website and telephone contact.
It is hard to find some vital info on the website and there are some outdated sections.
I couldn't contact them at all although I had problems with my checking in. They don't work on weekends (although they fly). I mean it says international service works, but when you call it you can here some answering machine speaking Swedish.

highupinthesky

As almost everything has been made self service available over the internet, the customer service through phone and chat has been cut back, and yes there is definitely room for improvement. But do you know many other airlines the size of SK who have customer service phones open in weekends and at night?

The customer service at the airports in CPH, OSL, ARN and GOT are open almost 24/7. For outstations, it depend on the outstation. EWR has almost 24/7 too as far as I remember, where at some of the smaller airports it depends on the ground handling company.

fassy

Doesn't help the OP but SK has 24/7 phone service for their Elites (EBG/EBD) with a very nice working priority system. Never waited more than perhaps 30 seconds after entering my EBD number. Even during the strike action or a mass irops due to bad weather.

fransknorge

The website is not the most easy to use and quite light on information. The lack of customer service on week-end is a problem (not unique to SAS) that I have a hard time fathoming considering the business.

Out of curiosity: what do you call a good landing and a bad landing ?

CPH-Flyer

My simple definition:
Good landing anything you can walk away from, excellent landing anything not requiring a service check of the aircraft due to the landing, bad the ones you can't walk away from?

Add to that, interesting landing, anything that challenges the pilots.

highupinthesky

I think you have been flying too much on discount airlines.

CPH-Flyer

No, I just know too many pilots.

A bad flying year is one where I have more than zero LCC flights.

fassy

I guess a lot of not-that-frequent flyer call a hard landing aka 'slamming it' a bad landing. Most people do not know that sometimes the crew have to bring down the wheels hard to fight weather conditions. Especially awkward are strong crosswinds with a last minute pivot tilt of the air-frame, touching ground with one side of wheels on the rear undercarriage first, then tilt around bring down the rest.

But even as very frequent flyer, I do not experience those landings a lot. So far, I had just one very, very hard landing. Actually a SK flight landing in CPH. The plane went tech after that. As a coincidence I also had just one rejected take off as well. Again SK in CPH. That one was nasty as we were already quite far down the runway, I assume very close to v1 when they aborted to avoid a collision with a flock of seagulls. actually slammed my head against the seat row in front of me. Not pleasant. But happens. Worst thing was that they fight was ultimately canceled as they couldn't find a replacement plane

ung1

Really? The number to dial for EBD and EBG is exactly the same, and I spent so long on hold during the strike that I gave up. I always seem to have a long enough wait that it gets annoying. Is it a different number/service in the different countries?

fassy

Same number as I'm aware, I call +46 8 797 40 00. And then "enter my nine digit EuroBonus" number. Next, the recording says: We are connecting you to the next free agent, which usually happens after a few seconds.

I guess the entered EB number gets matched against the EuroBonus database and if it comes back as "Diamond", it puts you at the head of the phone queue giving you the next free agent. Which usually isn't more than a few seconds.

highupinthesky

I've had a couple of hard landings, but only one scary one. It's some 20 years ago, arriving at BLL in the worst snow blizzard in years. During landing I could look down the center line of the runway and the plane was thrown in all directions. The trip from the airport to my how normally took about 45 min. This day it took over 3 hours.
A couple of days later I talked with a friend working at the airport, and he told me the only reason we were allowed to land was because all alternative airports incl. CPH had been closed since we left CPH. We were the last plane allowed to land at BLL that day.

But not only landings can be scary. Some of the detours we had to make flights between FRA/MUC and RUH are not for the faint harded. Once the flight look like a zigzag on flightradar24.

ksu

There will be SK personell at the airport when you arrive to check-in. Which problem was it that you needed to solve it before heading to the airport?

ung1

Ok, but probably the response time in Sweden is different than in Norway...

highupinthesky

I don't think so, but there were some reports about the phone system being overloaded a couple of times during the strike. But having +15.000 pax being affected daily during the strike will put A LOT higher load on the phone lines, so I'm actually surprised there weren't more reports about the phone system being overloaded.

Just as Fassy, I can't recall when I the last time spend more than a min. or two in the SK phone queue, and I'm Diamond too.

CPH-Flyer

I have not had a single aborted take off, nor a landing that would require a check of the airframe. Though a lot of what I will write of as interesting landing testing, just the pilot's skills a bit, a lot of people would probably call scary or bad landings.

I think the hardest landing I ever experienced was with SQ in Singapore, a 747, we had had two go arounds due to bad weather conditions in a rainstorm. On the third attempt it was quite obvious when we made contact with the runway.

Worst take off was from Narita in an SK 767, seems there was a lot turbulent air at runway level, we were shaken so badly before even taking off that the a lot of the overhead lockers spang open. Luckily nothing heavy fell out. I guess we were past the point of no return and had to get up. The pilot did come on the PA to comment on the take off roll once we had cleared a bit of altitude.