Flight Review: SAS Boeing 737-700 Economy Class

Flight #: SK898

From: Bergen (BGO)

To: Stockholm Arlanda (ARN)

Flight time: 1h approx.

Aircraft: Boeing 737-700

Class: Economy ("Go Traveller")

I had heard many good things about SAS years ago, when I was a child. So, what can I say? The first impression when I had my first chance to fly with them a few days ago was kind of underwhelming.

To be fair, it was a fairly short flight and there was nothing wrong with it. But it was just that, ok.

It may be that coming, as I was, from trying out a brand new aircraft like the Embraer E2, the economy class on a SAS Boeing 737-700 felt a bit cramped.

The seat pitch was ok but not great.

The seats are covered in cloth-like surface, which always feels a bit worse than leather (imo)

Tea and coffee are complimentary but, unless you are a "Plus Traveller", everything else you must pay for. Again, no surprises here as this is increasingly the norm, also with mainline airlines in Europe.

The menus were surprisingly non-appealing though, just plain text, nothing enticing you to purchase great looking (and hopefully tasting!) food

One detail that I found surprising is that we could find on our seats a menu meant for long haul and charter flights, and that these looked actually a lot better…

The one thing that I really liked is the inflight magazine, that had very good and interesting content. In fact, it’s been the first time in a long time that I not only eyed the magazine through but actually read it through (there were some interesting pieces about entrepreneurship in the Nordic countries) before landing in Stockholm.

The flight was on time, no small matter considering I had a super tight connection.

A small additional detail is that, upon arrival, the terminal interiors at Arlanda airport seemed a bit dated to me, particularly in contrast to what I had seen last time I was here, over a decade ago. Perhaps it was just one part of the airport or the inevitable contrast with the super modern airport terminal in Bergen, but that’s one detail that I did not fail to notice…

As I write these lines I read that SAS is getting some new A330neos.

It would be interesting to see how’s the experience like in those and whether SAS can get back some of the Scandinavian cool that seems to have been taken away by Norwegian of late.