oliver2002

LO's lounge is operated by external staff employed at low wages...

SK2751

as if the SK wasn't It appears that everybody except the lounge dragons are subcontractors. I have been meeting the same catering folks in the Appartment lounge And the food is often the same.

[but I get your point - low paid staff in CPH is still very different from low paid staff in WAW]

nussle

Just for our amusement in Stockholm Arlanda the SAS lounge is fully closed but the lounge next door, called Menzies I think is fully open. But, will not allow eurobonus in.

SAS, do some outside box thinking and do a deal with this lounge so we have somewhere to go!!

Airfrance and KLM also do some basic inflight catering, very basic but do it...SAS absolutely none.

I give them a few more months and I will have to rev up my flyteam or oneworld membership back to a decent level.

johan rebel

KL's shorthaul J catering is not that basic anymore. The beverage service is fully back to normal, and food is getting there, but still has some way to go.




CPH - AMS two days ago.

Johan

NextWhiteDeath

Compared to what a lot of airlines offer currently that is restaurant service
Look like there trying to ramp thing back up to compete better against LH group as there the only one back to full service everyone else still has some compromises.

nussle

Typical SAS, create a situation where its hard to work out if they are being incompetent , trying to save money or just being crazy cautious. I see KLM is back up and running at full steam, SAS has everything closed.

Flew to WAW last week in premium economy with SAS. No fast track, no lounge although the other lounge in ARN was open we could not use it. No food or beverage service and in CPH no lounge plus they were checking passports.

Its SAS from beginning to end, ryan air of scandanavia.

johan rebel

Colleagues of mine flying to/from Scandinavia are doing everything to ensure they are booked on KL instead of SK. KL is not completely back to normal, though. Their contract lounge in CPH is closed, as is CPH Express; and in AMS their own Schengen lounge closes at 12 noon. In-flight service on longhaul flights is still seriously subpar. On shorthaul the beverage selection is back to normal.

Johan

oliver2002

No airline in Europe is really back to 'normal'... SAS is in bad shape and understandably looking to cut costs. The short haul inflight catering is a profit center for them, so it is mysterious why they have not started the BoB service again...?

nussle

The lounge in warsaw...fully open and running.

SAS has always been weird and stingy in lounge access. It was the only one I know to get rid of all the contract lounges much to my surprise in Manchester and Alicante. They also introduced a rule limiting the number of drinks to one on some routes.

Its that beautiful skandy attitide of lagom shining through I guess....which I translate as "dont have too much fun, one is enough for you".

Anyway, once people work out no lounge access in the SAS lounges I guess they gunna choose different.

SkyTeam777

What is the experience like in the lounges that are up and running across Europe? Still buffet service with self-service food and open, self-serve bar? or is everything in plastic wrap and served to the guest by staff?

nussle

Basics are avaliable in warsaw, bottles of drink and coffee. A sign saying you can have a lunch made for you if you like.

hugolover

What do you mean? This is just incorrect. The employment situation is far better than a LH lounge as apart from the reception desk no one is LH staff.

The waiting staff are LO, as is the reception desk. The chef's are Do&Co, they're down to a pair or so. In other words, the vast majority are LO staff enjoying all the benefits such as staff travel.

nussle

I asked one of the staff in the lounge at Arlanda once how it was like working for SAS. She told me she was a praktiant (sp) which means she was not employed by SAS at all but was supplied for free by the government and SAS gets money for this but she gets nothing. they work for free basically. Its not too unusual here, lots of companies run on such free work force from Arbetsformedlingen.

I dont want to get into a debate about the rights and wrongs of this prakitant idea but before we point fingers at LO and their lounge staff being poorly paid remember that its possible that the staff in ARN are not paid at all.

oliver2002

LO went thru a massive restructuring in the early 2010s when they were in deep trouble. The management left no stone unturned and revised most of the legacy contracts. Services are provided thru a network of affiliated companies that pay wages barely good enough to hold employees. Finnair did something similar, SAS tried quite a bit but still has a long way to go. Also the average income in PL is far below below any of the Nothern or Western EU countries. The incremental labor cost to restart a lounge in ARN is far higher than in WAW for sure.

hugolover

They’ve all done that. It’s a race to the bottom across all the carriers on the pax and staff front. Yet there are still meaningful differences that leads to miles of discussion on this forum. Name me one European carrier where waiting on tables gets you staff travel? I can’t think of one, in fact, worldwide the list who provide that is far shorter than those who don’t.

Cabin crew on crappy contracts is the way it goes and now even includes flight crew. Helga has it and so does BArb, they’re targeted at young men and women who probably still live with their parents or in a flat share who want to travel a bit for peanuts flying alongside well-paid legacy crew who joined just after the Wright Brothers took flight.

If you were U30 and the choice was making tuna wraps in the SEN lounge with no travel benefits, (plus a face like thunder at the sheer joy of working there) or busing tables in WAW and you can fly to SIN with your pals for the best part of €50 Y or €200 J then which would you choose?