FFlash

Meals? Was there ever something that could be called a "meal"? Snack? Waste?
Okay, I stop here

miamiflyer8

Well whatever you call it, something to eat served free of charge.

CPH-Flyer

When they also introduced Economy Flex, which became Economy Extra, which became Plus.

In the autumn of 2004.

ksu

Actually, the Y meals served on SK in Europe and domestically between 1994 and 2004 were quite good.

livious

I have what seems to be an odd situation. My wife had all sorts of problems with OLCI for our MMX-ARN-ORD flights tomorrow. After some discussion on extra security (I have had a 100% success rate with the random SSSS marking), it seems that SAS somehow lost half of the families advanced seat reservations. Goodbye bulkheads and exit rows! The agent was kind enough to seat us together in the rear of the plane and asked us kindly to contqct the agents at MMX to see if seats opened up by the bulkhead (LOL). If we find his home address, he will be getting a very special X-mas card this year.

I have seen some strange things during my days, but losing 2 of 4 seat reservations on a single booking seems odd. As it turned out, it was the female half of the family ...so nothing to do with kids in the exit row. Plane seems to be the same, so no equipment change. Oh, and it was the same on the return flight next week. Struggling to figure out how this came to be, but felt that is was not worthy of a new thread.

Any speculations?

GUWonder

SAS is producing the haraSSSSment flag on SK ARN-ORD flights' boarding passes? If anything, what is SAS at ARN doing to passengers that have that flag on boarding passes?

cph_flyer

I had the SSSS flag on a CPH-ORD boarding pass once. At the gate I had to go to a separate room for extra security. All in all it turned out to be no big deal. Swab test and hand bagage checked and everything quite low key, friendly and relaxed.

FlyerTalker01565

Yeah, had it too once and it was zero problem.

miamiflyer8

It's very efficient how SK handles US departures, had to undure haraSSSSment at IST and that made me wish I was at ARN.

livious

I have had the same treatment as the others decribed. The swabbing goes fast and is not a real inconvenience, but I can never use OLCI. I also start to wonder how random the process is as I always receive this treatment. This would be the first time in several years without it.

nacho

Could it be someone have purchased the seats and SK wanted the $ instead of your loyalty? Or there's infant show up last minute that SK needs your bulkhead seats?

FlyingMoose

They've been doing that for a long-time. It just implies your name is on a list of 12-24 passengers who get a very minimal additional security check. Often just a swab test, as ridiculous as they are and worst case a brief pat down.

I've found the SSSS flag to come and go with 2-3 adjacent flights. Not sure if there is a pattern, which of course would completely defeat the purpose but I won't encounter it for a while and then have it a few times in a row. Always only in the ARN->US direction.

livious

Looks like a computer glitch as none of our passport info saved. I will need to see if there is an infant in the bulkhead seats on the flight to ORD as that makes some sense, although the seat reservations for MMX-ARN were also changed and the adults lost the exit row.

First world problems, but I would be happier if the glitch resulted in an upgrade.

klmml

I've had SSSS at LHR once, it was a full check of cabin baggage, a swab and a pat down. Gate agent seemed a bit upset that I knew in advance that I was a selectee

GUWonder

The US wants and approves of the methods used for SSSS flagging on US-bound flights; but the carriers' flag country and/or country of flight origin has to agree with it before it can happen for non-US carriers in the way the US wants it. A part of that flagging involves airline use of US-white-listed contractors whose software does for the airlines what the US wants it to do in this regard: picking targets for additional screening. Some of those airline security contractors have their own blacklists and blacklisting methods for selecting targets for additional screening that are substantially (but not entirely) independent of governmentally-micromanaged blacklists. In other words, blame for the hits on the boarding passes can be assigned to one or more of the following: involved government or governments for the flight; and/or involved airline/airline-selects security contractors (including their software-driven selection).

I've never had SAS flights where SSSS has hit me. And I book most of my international flights to the US within 2-36 hours of my flight, more frequently as one-way tickets than as roundtrip tickets. There is at least one security contractor whose software tended to hit people with this more often when they had bookings with lap-children or other young children in them or if they had re-assigned seats in some ways. And a lot of the "random" hits come in rapid sequence and then stop happening for a substantial period of time. AA out of LHR is sort of known for this hitting a chunk of GE members too. A bunch of the "random" selection isn't truly random.

Does this happen to you out of CPH too?

I got a seat-reassignment to the bulkhead recently in an economy class daytime flight after initial OLCI and getting the boarding passes on my devices. I try to avoid bulkheads even in business/first class, and so I wasn't thrilled to have this happen in the back of the flying bus. I wouldn't be surprised if I and my aide were moved to give someone else a whole row for rest purposes. I say that because during the flight I saw my prior seat become part of an empty row with tray tables down for the two aisle seats but no one in them when I walked by a few times.