Airline: SAS Connect
Flight #: SK1523
Route: ARN-LRH
Class: Economy
Seat: 27F
Date: Tuesday 29th August 2023
Two thirds of the way through my journey from Aarhus to Heathrow, I had just arrived at Stockholm Arlanda from Copenhagen (read about that here) and had just over three hours before my final flight of the day to London onboard SAS Connect. As such, it was time to try out SAS’s business class lounge at airport, having paid for access along with my flights.
SAS actually have two adjacent lounges at Stockholm Arlanda, the ‘SAS Lounge’ and the ‘SAS Gold Lounge’, with the latter being a more exclusive lounge for Diamond or Gold members of SAS’ reward scheme and that of its partners. The ‘SAS Lounge’ is open to all passengers on SAS Plus or SAS Business tickets or those, like me, that had purchased access for €29.
When I arrived at the lounge it was quite busy, and I ended up perched at one of the tables intended for those wanting to work on laptops etc. There was a reasonable selection of cold food such as pasta salads, along with an excellent tomato soup. Drinks wise, there was the usual selection of tea and coffee, beer, wine and various soft drinks.
Thankfully after 45 minutes or so the lounge quietened down quite a bit and it was a much more relaxing atmosphere to wait out my connection. Having had some of the soup along with a portion of the pasta salad, I just about had space for some ice cream which I discovered next to the drinks. Having spent a couple of hours relaxing in the lounge, I started making my way towards the E-gates ready to make my way back to England.
Its quite a walk from the lounge to the E-gates and I was glad to have given myself a bit of extra time. Most of the walk was along a narrow corridor through the building site that is part of Arlanda’s terminal. From what I could see this will be quite a nice modern area when it opens but for now there is just a long walk surrounded by hoarding to passport control.
Our aircraft for the flight was EI-SIB, a five-year-old Airbus A320neo that arrived in around 20 minutes late from Dublin. Operated by SAS Connect, a subsidiary of SAS, the aircraft are identical to those operated by the parent company but operated by crews employed at a lower cost as they are not covered by SAS’ union agreements. Boarding started at 1610, just 10 minutes before we were due to depart and despite boarding groups being allocated, it was a complete free for all to get onboard.
I was in seat 27F towards the back of the aircraft for the very full flight to London. As with the A320neo on my flight to Stockholm, this one had streamlined seats with USB sockets, however for some reason there seemed to be slightly less legroom than on that previous flight. Boarding was announced as complete at 1627, however it took another couple of minutes before everyone was actually in their seats.
Despite the extra time to get people seated, we managed to pushback at 1633, taxiing to runway 19L and taking off 10 minutes later, 23 minutes late. Taking a right turn immediately after take-off, we headed over the towns of Bro and Nyby before heading across the lakes to the west of Stockholm. I initially had great views out of the window before we climbed into a sea of cloud.
With this flight being to a destination out of Scandinavia, the inflight menu was more wide ranging whilst proper hot meals could have been ordered ahead of time (more than 24 hours in advance). Having had a long day of travel and having filled up on food in the lounge, I decided just to settle down with some shows on my tablet and the majority of the flight was uneventful.
With some light turbulence as we crossed the Kattegat (the body of water between Sweden and Denmark) and the Danish city of Aalborg, we remained above a bank of cloud until gap for around 10 minutes over the North Sea. With our decent from 38,000 feet beginning around 1820, the first officer made an announcement a few minutes later to update us on our progress and the ETA into Heathrow.
We crossed the coast over Foulness Island and I was able to catch glimpses of Essex through gaps in the cloud as we flew over Southend, Basildon and Epping Forest. We had a good run and thankfully didn’t get put in the Lambourne approach stack, and a left turn over the Lea Valley reservoirs took us south over Stratford before we turned right to line up for a long final to Heathrow.
Unfortunately, having for once followed the rule about sitting on the right for approaches to Heathrow for the views, the low cloud prevented me seeing Central London and I didn’t get any views until we were passing Battersea. Landing on runway 27L at 1759 local time, four minutes late, we had a very short taxi to Terminal 2’s gate 24 with the aircraft doors opening at 1807.
As I made the walk through Terminal 2 from the aircraft to the border, I had a few minutes to think about this flight and my other two with SAS. It was my first time flying with the Scandinavian airline and I’ve got to say I was impressed. Being able to buy access to the lounge for my three-hour connection was a bonus and with all my flights being pretty much on time, I really have no complaints.
Lounge 3*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 3*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 20/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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