The headline should set the tone for my worst business class review ever: SAS from Stockholm to Chicago on the A330. SAS has a standard long-haul product, the A330. After seeing photos of the cabin, we were excited to check it out. I will highlight a few areas where I think SAS does a good job, but my wife and I think our SAS business class experience was the worst we have ever had. We will be avoiding them in the future. Here is what happened.
Booking process
We booked with Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and paid 72,000 miles each. This is not the best option for flights from Europe to the U.S. We didn't have to cough up a lot of miles because of the recent 20% transfer bonus from American Express Membership rewards. It was a winner for us.
It was a winner because we were able to get to my parents in Florida with only one connection.
The cash price included the United domestic flight. The redemption value is calculated per mile. That is above average for KrisFlyer redemptions.
Check in.
It was a disaster. There is no sugar coating it.
SAS had 5 employees for the economy and 2 for the business class. When we arrived, they were checking in 3 SAS flights to the U.S. The economy line was 3-4 times longer than the business class line, but it completely emptied before the business class line. Our line was handled by the worst check-in agents.
When we got to the counter, there were 6 people in front of us, plus 2 people already at the counter. We were in line for more than 50 minutes. That is ridiculous. 2 agents helped a total of 8 parties. Here is why.
When we checked in, the woman helping us looked at my passport and gave it back to me. She did the same thing for my wife. She didn't have the passports to check the names when she wanted to look at the Covid tests. We had to return them to her. This happened twice more during the process. She asked if we had visas, but didn't remember we had US passports. It was a mess.
She advised us to go straight to the gate since there wasn't enough time to stop at the lounge. Who is responsible for that? We showed up at the airport 2.5 hours before the flight, but we lost an hour and had to go to the tax refund desk because of potential lines at passport control.
The employee gave bad information.
I asked the employee where the tax refund desk was as we walked away. She told us to go past passport control and find it near our gate. That was wrong. There isn't a tax refund desk near the gates. We didn't have time to go to the other terminal and get back to our flight. She made us lose $32 by giving bad info since this can't be done online.
Non-citizens who are leaving the EU get a tax refund on items they purchase in Sweden. The purchases had nothing to do with SAS, but I assumed she could point us to the right spot. Nope.
The person is boarding.
There is a waiting area.
This was another disaster.
The waiting area had a document check area. This went well. The boarding process was not the main story.
There was no pre-boarding, business class boarding or groups. It was a cattle call. People are heading for the jet bridge. We got a surprise announcement. The bus is full since we are boarding by it. 50 people can be handled at a time. Everyone should sit back down. Say what?
Why are we taking the bus? The people at the front of the line looked like they didn't want to lose their spot in line. It was laughable.
We took a bus to the airport. The plane couldn't have been parked further away. People joked that we were going to Chicago.
There was no organization after the bus dropped us off. Employees are not helping anything. Nothing.
It was freezing. Many people put their coats and jackets in their suitcases when they arrived at the airport. We were outside in the cold.
As I stepped past the flight attendant to get into the business class cabin, I got a "hi" and nothing friendly. At the other aisle, my wife didn't see a "hi" on her side.
SAS A330 Business Class Review.
We thought, "OK, that's over." Everything should be fine now. We were wrong but not bad. I will be fair here.
The business class cabin is sleek. The seats are staggered. Business class has 8 rows. There is no difference in the middle seats. All of the seats in the middle are the same, except for the dividers.
Even-numbered rows are closer to the window for the single seats. The staggered layout is to blame.
The flight attendant made an announcement while I was taking this picture. Under Swedish privacy laws, it is not allowed to take pictures of other passengers or flight crew without their consent. I think it was directed at me. I would happily show them that I didn't take pictures of anyone if they came and talked to me.
There is a seat.
My wife and I had seats in row 5 when we first arrived. We moved to row 6. That explains why you will see my controls in a different spot later.
The seat layout is nice. The layout is easy to navigate. It wasn't convenient to talk over the console in the center of the seats, but it wasn't bad.
The seats had a seat cover, blanket, pillow, and amenity kit when they arrived.
A bottle of water is tucked away in the corner of the console by my shoulder, and it has a lamp, headphones, and multiple controls.
The buttons for the lamp and seat worked as expected. The overhead light button did not work. The overhead light above my seat would turn on at random times after we moved to row 6. It was annoying but enjoyable.
Universal outlets are also present.
The seatbelt is fastened.
The seat belt has an attachable shoulder harness for take-off and landing.
The safety information and air sick bag were in a small pocket.
The foot well isn't the most generous, but it isn't cramped. The shelf was too far away from the seated position to be used as a foot rest.
It held my shoes, blankets, and pillow when I put them in the foot well.
The aisle from the seat was a bit tight. The space between my console and the plastic mold in front of it was too small. I think I figured it out later. I had to turn my feet to fit through.
There is a table with trays.
The tray table is pushed out of the console. The button had to be pushed to release the table. My wife had the same experience.
The tray table does not fold. It is a good size and can move forward/backward so you can get it in the right spot for working or eating.
The tray table needs to be put away. It had to be in the right spot on the track to leave. It took me a long time to put it away.
There is storage.
There was a small pocket on the plastic that could be used to hold magazines or a book. It can't hold a laptop, and I wouldn't want to keep small items in there that would be hard to get out.
Personal entertainment system.
My wife's entertainment system wouldn't turn on when we arrived. There is a black screen. There were known issues with the system, and she called for a flight attendant. We moved to row 6 behind us because it was empty.
These issues continued. There were no TV shows or music in the entertainment system.
The movies should be counted: 4. That is it. They flew for 9 hours and had a total of 4 movies. There are 4 movies plus no TV or music. It was laughable.
Even though the light above me flickered, I could deal with that as a better alternative than my wife not having a working entertainment system.
It's called Lavatory.
This is the highlight of the cabin. That is saying something.
The lavatories are larger than the economy lavatory. I have taken several flights recently that had a normal bathroom in business class, but this was definitely better. It reminded me of trains with the toilet in the corner.
The sink and mirror were not special. They had air freshener and wet wipes. The space and layout of the lavatory were positives.
There is a bed.
I saved this for the end. The bed isn't a bed. The flight was marketed as flat, but it was not.
Look at the picture. That is not even 45o. This was the limit of how far I could recline my seat. We observed other people in the cabin while we tested the seats in row 5. No one was completely flat.
What is the deal here? The bed in this review is completely flat. I found that my flight on January 7, 2022, used a plane that is 19 years old. Is that the problem? The seats on the new planes are supposed to fit. I am speculating. The interior is new and matches reviews of new products, but the plane is older.
They jammed in the same number of seats, maybe there is less space front to back. The seats are too close together. The benefit of the doubt is given by speculation. They should not market this flat as a lie-flat business class.
I put the seat back up and didn't plan on sleeping in this position.
There is a internet connection.
I purchased in-flight internet because I was going to work on the flight and didn't have a bed.
The speed was fast. The ping was terrible. The response time for loading websites was slowed down by this. I was able to use the internet at a slower rate than I wanted since the speed was negatively affected by the bad ping rate.
The bad service elements include chaotic boarding.
Bad review continues on SAS A330 Business Class Flight.
When we boarded the plane, we were not greeted at all. No flight attendants came to greet us. My wife pushed the call button and we only talked to someone. Someone came to talk to her about the entertainment system.
Before take-off, there was no drink. My gut feeling was that the PA announcement was passive aggressive. All of that was done before the flight.
Delay.
We departed an hour late. After 45 minutes, we got an announcement about this. We left an hour late because of the chaotic boarding, some issues with flight manifest, and trying to get the entertainment systems working. During the delay, the crew didn't offer water or anything. They did not come to talk to us. They were in their seats, seat belts on, chatting with one another in the galley.
Language issues.
It is appropriate to call this section language issues. There were only 11 passengers in our business class cabin. 2 flight attendants and a purser were present. You can't convince me that they didn't know we don't speak Swedish.
The flight attendants talked to us in Swedish every time they came to talk to us. Every time. Without fail. We had to say "English?" every time. I told my flight attendant that we don't speak Swedish. Please use English.
The crew speaks English. It's quite good English. That was not the issue. Out of 11 people who don't speak Swedish and speak to us in English, they couldn't remember. It was weird to have to remind them about this. I don't understand or explain this strange thing.
There is insufficient cleaning.
There are 2 instances that I will note.
There are stains near seat controls.
I noticed stains while taking pictures of the controls and console area near my seat, but I get that this is not the most obvious of spots. This needs to be cleaned better.
There is a dirty sock in the foot well.
When taking pictures of my foot in row 6, I was surprised to find a dirty sock from a previous flight. It wasn't someone's personal sock left behind, so this matches the sock in the kit.
This is an oversight on cabin cleaning.
Amenity Kit.
There are some positives. The kit is good.
The case is boring, but the kit is full. Eye mask, socks, ear plugs, moisturizer, lip balm, bamboo toothbrush, and toothpaste. It was a good kit and didn't go beyond expectations.
There are meals.
The meals are a net positive, even though they have a weird "please speak to me in English" element.
The purser came to our row and asked if we were in row 5. You have special meals? It was confirmed that our vegan meals were on board, and she was good for figuring out the connection with the empty seats in row 5.
They didn't give us a menu since we had special meals. I did not see what the options were.
Gnocchi was the main course in the first meal. It was a home run.
I liked both the Samosa and the gnocchi, but I am not sure why the Indian-Italian combination was 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 A woman came around with a basket of different options of bread. The salad was boring, but I am letting it go because of how good the gnocchi was. An excellent main dish makes up for some lackluster sides.
SAS was unable to go 2-for-2 on the meals. The light meal before landing was bland. There was a lentil patty on top of some vegetables and a bed of lentils. Both of these had no seasoning. I didn't mind not finishing these and just eating the fruits because I wasn't hungry.
When my mom picked us up from the airport, she snacked on the chocolate bar that they gave us.
The plan was de-planed.
There is more chaos here. They used the free-for-all approach in the middle door. The flight attendants did not show up. Business class passengers disembark first. 2 people from the economy pushed past my wife to get off the train.
Flight attendants did not stand near the door to say goodbye. No one thanked us for flying SAS. This was not common in my other flight experiences.
Overall thoughts on service.
The flight attendants were hit and miss. Things would go well if we could get them to repeat themselves in English. I don't know what to do with this for the rest of my life. 2 out of 11 people don't speak Swedish. You have 3 people working for you. You cannot remember this during the flight. What is going on with this?
Cleaning could be improved.
The highlight of the service category was the meals. The gnocchi was great.
The amenity kits were pretty good.
The service needs improvements. There is a language aspect and a cleaning aspect. The lack of attention to customers during boarding and pre-takeoff, as well as the actual processes of getting on and off the plane.
Final thoughts.
I tried to be fair in my review of SAS business class, but this flight on the A330 from Stockholm to Chicago is easily my worst business class flight experience. I asked my wife if this was the worst business class flight she had ever flown.
She looked at me and asked, "Do you really need to ask?"
We will be avoiding SAS. The meal was great, but that doesn't make up for chaos getting on and off, poor service quality, bad cleaning practices, and the ridiculousness of the "it's lie flat, but it's not" with our seats.
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