Austman

SAS have announced service improvements on their intercontinental (767) flights. The highlights are:

* One extra cabin attendant.

* A wider selection of beverages and extended between-meals service in both classes.

* In Business Class: More varied menus, a light meal anytime, a quick breakfast if you prefer to sleep through the regular breakfast.

* In Economy Class: Menus now provided, a choice of two main courses, movie snacks on day flights, the second serving will be on a tray instead of their 'boxes'.

I suspect that the extra cabin attendant was needed because the 767s are being changed from a 188 seat to a 204 seat configuration. Business class is being made smaller and Economy Class larger.

I haven't been on a SAS intercontinental flight recently. I've been travelling lots to S-E Asia and the SK flights were mostly sold out. No wonder they need larger aircraft. The A340s/A330s are to be delivered in 2001 and 2002.

Are there any refurbished 767s out there yet? On my transits through Copenhagen I've yet to see a SAS 767 in the new paint work. The repainting was to be done in Germany I think while the interior refurbishment was to be done in the USA. I guess some interior refurbishment has been done because the new seat maps are in SAS's latest timetable.

Has anyone flown recently on a SAS 767 and can report what they are now like?

Austman

About the refurbished 767s.

Surely someone's been aboard one by now?

I have yet to see one but SE-DKZ seems to have had some work done to her.

She's at least missing one window now as the photos show (13 forward windows are now 12), so some inside work must have been done...

Before: http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=55023

After: http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=75705

... or maybe the missing window was due to an earlier reconfiguration. SE-DKZ was used for European flights for a while.

If I find out that the interiors have NOT been refurbished and SAS are still using the same (old) seats, I'll get so mad that I'll burn (melt?) my Eurobonus card (after using all my miles of course!).

[This message has been edited by Austman (edited 06-15-2000).]

JustinT

I flew an SAS 767 from EWR to CPH about 7 or 8 weeks ago. Like you said, it was still the old paint scheme. There were 3 at EWR when I arrived, with all 3 in the old paint. The cabin was nice, if a bit old looking. I was surprised by the seat-pitch, as there was a few more inches that I expected. Always nice...
Speaking of the A330/340s...I received a Volvo mailer the other day promoting the free trip to Europe you get if you buy one. SAS actually uses a pic of a 340 on the mailer, which I though funny since they're not due for at least a year.
Anyway, the experience was a good one, though the 767s could use an upgrade.

Austman

Justin you can tell if it was a new configuration 767 if there were just 2 cabins. The old 767 configuration has 3 cabins - the first two are business class and the large main cabin is economy class.

The one advantage with the old configuration was that the middle (business class) cabin was often run as economy class, meaning that lucky economy class passengers got business class comfort but economy class service.

That nice litte perk will sadly disappear with the new configuration.

Austman

From the SAS operations website:
11 JAN
Modification 767
SAS will rebuild the cabin on 6 of our 767’s in year 2000. The cabin will be rebuilt to a two-cabin configuration, instead of the three-cabin configuration we have today, with the new interior. We will have 11 seats less in C-class and 25 seats more in M-class. Further the VCC will be moved from the left side to the middle of the cabin. Two of the A/C will be repainted in the new SAS colors during the modification.
Peter Henricsson/ 767 fleet office

31 JAN
Boeing 767, SE-DKZ, out of operation
One of the fourteen Boeing 767 in SAS, SE-DKZ, is now out of operation. Today it was delivered/returned to Air Canada, Montreal.

[This message has been edited by Austman (edited 08-11-2000).]

Austman

I flew recently ARN-ORD and ORD-ARN in SAS's upgraded business class. The planes were still the old 767 configuration (3 cabins not 2) and the interiors were still somewhat shabby. But I'm pleased to say that the new service improvements were excellent.

SAS now offer a choice of 4 main courses for the main serving and a substantial improvement in the second serving. The hot breakfast has returned - hooray! There are options of a light meal anytime and a lighter breakfast. The between meals service seems to be improved too with the FAs going around the cabin offering snacks (fruit, candy etc) as well as beverages from time to time. On overnight flights the half litre water bottles are handed out as before. SAS have changed their beverage list somewhat. They now offer single malt whiskeys, rum and even dessert wine (great!). Four choices of dinner wines are available as before and they have kept the excellent Remy Martin XO cognac. I thought the food and drink quality and choices were excellent.

SAS don't have in seat videos - the 767's are too old, but they do hand out Sony video walkmans and a choice of about 20 movies. The Sony noise reducing headsets are still great.

The amenity kit looks cheap but the contents are useful at least:- earplugs, skin and lip moisturisers, eye shades, socks, toothpaste and toothbrush.

In general, I'd say that I enjoyed to food and drink quality more than even Singapore Airlines. The SAS staff were pretty good too. You are not fussed over like some Asian airlines but the service was constant, friendly and efficient. The seat comfort is OK but perhaps not as good as some others - and certainly not as fancy with nothing electrically adjustable. The state of the old 767 interiors is the biggest negative. I asked one FA and he told me that there are a 'couple' of refurbished 767s (the new 2 cabin style) now in service. I know the Airbuses are coming, but they are not scheduled for the North American routes even when they arrive.

Fix the 767 interiors and I'd say that SAS has a very nice intercontinental business class.

usoftie

Does anyone know if SEA-CPH operates with "upgraded" business class? You'd think so, since it's one of their most popular routes. I'm traveling on that next month...

Austman

From SAS Flight Operations:

11OCT
Repainting SAS Boeing 767-300
As we mentioned here before we will repaint two of our 767's this fall. It now looks like the first one, OY-KDH, will return from Montreal last week of October. Most likely arriving Copenhagen.

usoftie:
Re: SEA-CPH, the SERVICE will be the new style, the CABIN might not be.



[This message has been edited by Austman (edited 10-11-2000).]

Austman

From SAS flight operations:

13OCT
CHANGED!! Repainting SAS Boeing 767-300

A new decision was taken that SAS will repaint 6 of the 13 767's, not just 2 as we mentioned here ...

I expect that will be because SAS will keep the 6x767s and replace the other 7 with A330/A340 aircraft.

Carfield

Thank you for all these reports on SAS Business Class!

I am very interested in flying Star Alliance RTW next year... I will definitely try SAS.
I got a couple SAS J class intra-Europe menus from a fellow FT talker . It looks very nice.

I am curious if you can post us some SAS J class international menu transcripts sometimes. I will like to see what kind of food do they serve? how many courses of meal do they have?

Thanks,
Carfield

usoftie

I'll be sure to put it in my trip report on my SEA-CPH flight on Saturday .

smg77

I flew SK 938 SEA-CPH this past Friday in Economy. I'm not going to write a complete trip report, but I can say that I was very pleased overall with the service, food, seat, etc. One of the better flights I've taken overseas.

I believe the aircraft was one of the "old" 767 configurations -- 3 cabins, the first two Business, then Economy. Economy was 90% full, Business only 50%. The business seats looked rather unimpressive.

The plane was painted with Star Alliance livery -- star on the tail and sections of the fuselage in the usual SAS, Lufthansa, United, Air Canada, and Thai paint jobs. The aircraft drew plenty of confused stares. I saw a AC A340 with similar livery at YVR around Christmas last year.

Austman

usoftie:

I hope your flight is good. SAS is not like Asian airlines, so the service is never pampered. But on most of my intercontinental flights it's been very good lately.

Carfield:

Around Europe, I'd have to say that SAS's Business class is just OK. BA's is a much better product. But SAS's menu's (on longer flights) look pretty! SAS's presentation is nearly all on plastic and you have to remove the foil from the hot dish etc. It looks cheap compared to say BA around Europe (longer flights) where the service is on/in glass and china with the hot course from the trolley. LH is better than SK too. Whoever designed SAS's European Business class should have be sacked in my own opinion! It was better before.

In Economy class however, SAS is pretty good and often better than other European airlines, in my opinion.

usoftie

Austman: My SAS flight was OK. It was a notch below UA intl C, IMHO in just about every way (service, seat), except for the personal videos. See my trip report at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum81/HTML/001293.html