Choosing an airline can be difficult. There are so many different to choose from! Do you struggle to decide? In this post we’ll tell you what to expect from 5 airlines that we use. Frequent fliers are often very loyal to just one airline. We must say we’re also quite guilty in this, and mostly fly with our two favourite airlines. Do you want to know which one we love? Check out this post!
SAS Scandinavian Airlines
SAS Scandinavian Airlines is quite an old airline from 1946. It was originally a Scandinavian company owned by Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And is still the biggest airline in Scandinavia. They fly to and inbound in all the Scandinavian countries of course. To all the big cities in Europe and North America. Middle East. And Asia. These are the classes for most SAS flights: Economy, Economy Extra and Business Class, as well as First Class on selected intercontinental flights.
It’s said that SAS is among the best airlines in the world. This is mostly because of their customer service and average reply time to passenger complaints. Which is great if you get any problems on your trip. Flight performance is above average, but only slightly. Anyway, it means the chance your flight gets delayed or cancelled is slightly smaller than with other airlines.
With SAS you mostly get luggage included in the ticket price. And when flying economy, you’ll get coffee and thee onboard for free. With economy, food and drinks must be bought on inland flights. But are included on all long-distance flights. On higher classes food and drinks are always included. Shorter flights though, will have snacks and not really a meal.
Personally, we’ve had only good experiences with SAS and it’s one of the two airlines we frequently use. Because we use a SAS Mastercard, we also get a lot of Eurobonus points that we use for our travels. Crew is always helpful, smiling and friendly. The food you get when flying SAS Plus is soooo tasty! Really high-class food, even on inland flights. Flying with SAS is always a pleasure!
Norwegian Air Shuttle
Norwegian Air Shuttle, or only Norwegian like it’s mostly called, is a Norwegian company as you might have guessed,. The company was founded in 1993. They have bases in 9 countries and 37 million passengers travelled with them last year. They call themselves a low-cost airline, and advertise that they have cheap flights worldwide. And are often called the World’s best Long-haul, low-cost airline, which many believe they truly are. They use quiet and fast, brand new 787-9 Boeing Dreamliner’s for their long-haul flights. Which travellers are quite happy with.
The classes on Norwegian flights are: Low Fare, Low Fare +, Flex, Premium and Premium Flex. Depending on if it’s an international long haul or not, you can choose from the classes above. In all classes except the Low Fare luggage is included in the ticket price.
With Norwegian you can choose yourself if you want to eat something or not. Food and drinks are not included with Low Fare tickets/ Economy class. But Low Fare + and Flex tickets do include meals and beverages. The menu will vary depending on country/ length of your flight.
We’ve only taken short inbound flights with Norwegian, but all in all we’ve been satisfied and had no problems. But we just booked our next trip! We’re going to Dubai and will fly with Norwegian from Oslo to Dubai. We’re looking forward to seeing how they do on longer flights. Rumour has it though, that Norwegian have more frequent delays than other airlines. Fingers crossed everything will be okay!
Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa, or Lufthansa as the airline mainly is called, is the flag carrier airline of Germany and one of the biggest airlines in the world if you look at number of passengers per year. The airline was founded in 1926. And is also one of the five founding members of Star Alliance formed in 1997.
Lufthansa strongly weigh inland flights and have 18 domestic destinations. Plus, that they fly to all six continents and have in total 193(!) international destinations in 81 countries. The classes with Lufthansa are: Economy, Premium Economy, Business and First Class. Meals and drinks are included in all classes. And luggage is always included from 1 bag and up, depending on class.
Lufthansa is looked upon as a consistent high-level airline. And has been rated «the best airline» in Europe.
We generally do not fly often with Lufthansa. But I’ve sometimes flown with them for work, and must honestly say that I’ve not been over-enthusiastic about this airline. Maybe it’s my very Dutch-influenced-brain that kind of have the same feelings for Germany as we Norwegians have for Sweden. And that I generally don’t like or maybe understand the typical strict and short German way of being. But I’ve only been on Lufthansa long-haul flights, and have had pore service, bad seats and not so great food. That’s not so nice when you need to spend 10-11 hours onboard an aircraft. And then go straight to work. The fact that the crew speaks German to everyone, and just expect you to understand. And that they answer short and strict if they need to speak English, is just a mood-killer for my positive attitude in life. The airline should get better at friendliness to ALL nationalities that travel with them.
Have you ever flown with Lufthansa? Tell us your experiences! Maybe I’ve just been unlucky, because most reviews say that it’s a good airline!
Thai Airways
Thai Airway International or just Thai Airways is the flag carrier airline from Thailand and was founded in 1960. SAS helped them get started and owned part of the company until 1977. Since then the company has been owned by Thailand government. They are also one of the founding members of Star Alliance. Thai Airways flies to more than 60 destinations around the world. They have 10 domestic destinations and 63 destinations international. The classes you can choose from with Thai Airways are: Economy Class, Royal Silk Class and Royal First Class. Thai Airways meals are always included in the price of your ticket, and you can also preorder special meals.
Thailand is called «the land of smiles» and Thai Airways definitely lives up to this! The airline was named the World’s Best Economy Class Airline in 2017 by Skytrax. And is generally looked upon as a very good airline.
I’ve flown to and from Thailand with them, and had a great experience. Good seats, good food, smiling and polite crew in colourful uniforms matching their positive and graceful way of being.
If you’re going to Thailand- choose Thai Airways. And also, if you see them available to other destinations!
KLM
The fifth and last airline; KLM or KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij). It’s the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands and was founded in 1919. They still operate under its original name, and are therefore the oldest airline in the world still under the same name. This means that in 2019 they were 100 years old. That’s quite cool! It was celebrated and advertised for throughout the hole year. You’ve probably seen it? We were actually flying with KLM on the exact date that they turned 100, October 7th 2019. And we heard rumours on the radio while driving in the Netherlands that they were giving out presents to travellers on that date. We (mostly I) were quite excited for this. But we boarded the flight and flew from Amsterdam to Ålesund, Norway. And didn’t see or hear anything about these presents. Imagine my disappointment! Did you fly on this date and were lucky enough to get a gift? I think it might have been only on long distance flights, and that we didn’t catch this fact when listening to the radio.
Anyway- KLM is our absolute favourite airline! We’ve both flown all over the world with KLM. And we’ve never had any problems or negative experienced with the airline. We’ve flown short distance and long-distance and it’s just always great. The food is great. The leg-space is great. The crew is super friendly, helpful, smiling and gives great service. When flying 10-11 hours it’s so important that you’re happy with the airline. They even give out Stroopwafels to their passengers! (Don’t know what Stroopwafles are? Here you can see what they are. They are delicious and makes me jump for joy!).
With KLM you have the following classes: World Business Class, Europe Business Class, and Economy Class. Meals, snacks and drinks are always free with KLM, on all classes. The menu and number off meals differs depending on the length of your flight. But it’s always included in your ticket price.
KLM has 2 domestic flights in the Netherlands and 133(!) international destinations in 66 countries! Their customer service is looked upon as timely and excellent, and the airline as reliable and punctual. This totally fits with our view of the airline. You get such great help if you need to contact customer service. You can write to them on messenger or on WhatsApp in multiple languages of your choice, and you’ll get answers really fast!
Pascal is Dutch, so he has always used KLM as his main airline because of their many destinations in the world directly from Amsterdam. I had flown with KLM earlier, but really started to fly with them after they opened a direct route from my closest airport, Ålesund in Norway, to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in 2013. And man, have I used that route often! Just after they opened that route, I started to travel the world alone and it was just perfect. I got to Amsterdam and could basically fly to just about anywhere from there. I loved KLM from that moment. And once I started to learn Dutch, I also started to love the Netherlands and KLM even more!
Overall, we highly recommended KLM! Have you never flown with KLM? Book your next flight with them and let us know what you think!
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Did this small guide help you out? We certainly hope so! Remember this is our experience, and it might not be how you feel or will feel.
Our favourite tool for finding flights are Skyscanner and I’m often making jokes that searching for flights on Skyscanner is my hobby. Almost daily I use it to check out prices on flights to different destinations that I know we want to go to. If price is important to you – you can use Skyscanner to find the cheapest flights to where you want to go. You can see which airline gets you there the fastest, cheapest or whatever is important to you. Do you want us to write a post about Skyscanner and everything you can use this website for? Let us know and we will!
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