Review of SAS flight from Copenhagen to Paris in Business

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport (CPH) to Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG), which I took on 23 February 2026 coming back from the NordicFuzzCon furry convention in Malmö, Sweden.

Since, this flight, alongside my other flights to the convention and back home, are the first flights I took after joining Flight-Report, this report will be much more detailed and image-rich than my previous ones, and would also be written in mostly real-time rather than retrospectively.

BACKGROUND

My flight tickets for the convention were booked in September, well in advance of the convention and even a month ahead of the convention's registration opening.

The flight itinerary I took for the trip was:

When researching flight options, I first went to El Al's website: with the exception of the flight to Rome, which I eventually picked, all flights on offer had short layover times below what I'd consider acceptable - to the disbelief of my dad, who I consulted about the flights with. (A rule I learned from an internet friend is to never book flights with layovers shorter than 90 minutes; while I only learned this rule in May 2024, my dreadful 90-minute layover in Schiphol three months before helped cement it as the minimum layover time in my mind.)

The flights on offer on El Al's site were:

- TLV departure 06:40, CPH arrival 13:25, 1h20m layover in MXP (LY387->SK1684)
- TLV departure 06:10, CPH arrival 14:30, 3h layover in FCO (LY385->SK682) [ultimately selected]
- TLV departure 16:15, CPH arrival 21:50, 1h layover in VIE (LY363->SK696)
- TLV departure 06:00, CPH arrival 11:40, 1h layover in WAW (LY5101->SK752)
- TLV departure 10:45, CPH arrival 16:25, 1h layover in WAW (LO156->SK2762)

On 8 February, eight days before flight LY385, I was informed that it would be pushed forward by half an hour, from a 06:10 departure to a 05:40 one. This made my planned three-hour layover into a three-and-a-half hour layover.

Another complicating factor was the fact that I wanted to fly at least one of the flights on a widebody plane. Given that this was the off-peak season, I would have to route my flight either via London-Heathrow or via Paris, as these are the only European destinations El Al consistently flies widebodies to year-round. Since El Al's website did not offer any routing from CPH via LHR/CDG (although there were routings from ARN via LHR, they would have required me to plug the gap from Malmö to Stockholm by a three-to-four hour train journey: I could not find any conveniently-timed train since SJ, the Swedish national railway, have yet to publish their 2026 schedule at the time), I instead had to resort to ITA Matrix, a professional flight-finding tool recommended by the HaMatmidim frequent flyer blog, to find my flight.

Since ITA Matrix is a professional tool, It does not let you book the flight on your own; instead, you'd have to forward the details of your booking to a flight agent, who would book the flights for you. My dad was a great help in this, as he helped me book the flights through his own travel agent - though, of course, I was the one who paid for them.

Through ITA Matrix, I found out that there's a routing available from CPH via CDG to TLV, taking flights SK565 from CPH to CDG and LY324 from CDG to TLV. Though some of El Al's TLV-CDG flights are operated by the narrowbody fleet, LY324 is consistently operated by a widebody, which made it more attractive to me.

At the time of the initial booking, LY324 was scheduled to be operated by a 777-200 - the oldest and largest widebodies in El Al's fleet, which underwent a full cabin renewal in 2023-25; though I have flown on El Al's 777s before, it was always on their pre-renewal cabins. Due to low demand for seats on LY324, however, it was reassigned to a 787-800 (the smallest widebodies in El Al service) in mid-December.

Although the flights were booked in September, they were all booked as economy tickets: I waited for two more months to save up enough money, and then upgraded my return tickets to Business Class in cash (while upgrading in points is also an option, and the only one available on the site, it is technically only submitting a bid for upgrade; an upgrade in cash can only be done over the phone, but is guaranteed to give you a upgraded ticket if one is available at the time of the upgrade).

While I initially wanted to only upgrade the tickets for LY324 - since, in the annoyingly-persistent European short-haul tradition, SAS's short haul fleet has the same hard product in Business and Economy (which, in my experience, only offers a modest improvement over economy, and this improvement is more notable in mid-haul flights which the intra-European cabin is completely inappropriate for than in the one-to-two-hour hops it was designed around), and SAS' soft product in intra-European economy is already excellent - the El Al rep told me this was impossible, and I could only upgrade both SK565 and LY324 as a bloc.

COPENHAGEN-KASTRUP AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

Although my flight was due to depart at 8:20, which required me to be at the airport by 5:20 if I wanted to arrive three hours ahead, this did not pose much of a problem: Furry conventions already run on a schedule optimized for wakefulness between 9 and 3 the next day, rather than the 6-to-23 schedule of a normal working life. I already had something to do before I'd have to return to the hotel and pack for the flight back home - by going to the Dead Dog party (in the furry fandom's internal jargon, this means a party organized for convention attendees who intend to depart later than the closing ceremonies, which are held on the afternoon of the last "official" convention day).

However, there was the issue of ensuring I would stay awake during this time, as I was worried that if I would fall asleep I would oversleep and miss my fight. For this reason, after leaving the convention center for the final time, I bought myself a milkshake at MAX Burgers (a local Swedish fast food chain; as it does not have much operations in other countries, it is beloved by NordicFuzzCon's attendees.) on the way to my hotel, trusting that the sugary drink would prolong my wakefulness.

Since I made use of the increased baggage allowance to travel with two pieces of checked luggage - my suitcase to carry the costume I wore for the convention (called a "fursuit" in the furry fandom's internal jargon) and a retractable duffel bag for my street clothing and laundry bags - as well as the weather in Malmö at the time, which was rainy and windy, I opted against walking from my hotel to the Malmö Central train station and taking a train from there to CPH airport (the mirror-image of the way I took from the airport to the hotel at arrival).

While my parents recommended me to take a taxi from my hotel directly to the airport, I found the prospect daunting since the costs of doing so would likely be extremely high, as the taxi ride in question would both cross the Swedish-Danish international border and pass via the Öresund bridge, which is a toll road. Because of this, I instead considered to take a taxi only to Malmö Central train station and continue by train to the airport. When I asked my hotel's receptionist about this, they agreed with my assessment that it would be significantly cheaper, and in the end that is indeed what I did; the Taxi ride cost only 90 SEK, while the train ticket cost 150 SEK.

I left the hotel after checking out at around 4:45, and arrived at Malmö Central by around 4:55. Although I missed the train that was there, the next one came in only 7 minutes later, at 5:05, so this was not much of a loss. However, due to a slower train ahead on the line slowing down my train, I arrived at Copenhagen Airport at 5:36 instead of 5:30, about two and a half hours before the scheduled departure time.

Once I got to the Airport, however, the check-in and security process was a breeze - both due to the fact I was travelling in Business class and the fact I'm eligible for priority lines due to having a non-visible disability. I made it from the start of check-in to the end of security in just 15 minutes; for reference, in Ben Gurion Airport the timing would be closer to 30 minutes, although this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, as Kastrup's security protocol does not include the (oft-mocked as tedious) verbal interview passengers to and from Israel undergo: "have you packed alone", "did anyone give you anything to bring with you", et cetera.

Since I was flying in Business class, I was eligible to use the fast-track security channel, which is located adjacent to the SAS Business class lounge - so much that the fast track's exit is located right next to the lounge's entrance and the two have a shared wall.

THE SAS BUSINESS LOUNGE

The SAS lounge in Copenhagen serves both the Scandinavian triple-flag carrier as well as other SkyTeam airlines which have a presence in CPH. As a legacy of SAS being a "defector" from the Star Alliance (which it was one of the founders of) to SkyTeam, it also serves some Star Alliance carriers, such as Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, and the Lufthansa group airlines.

In addition, the lounge's location is right beside one of the two entrances to baggage claim; however, I don't know whether it also functions as an arrivals lounge rather than just a departures lounge, though I don't find it likely (especially given that, despite my first impression that all arriving passengers, Schengen and non-Schengen alike, go to the "departures" duty-free section rather than a separate corridor directly to baggage claim - an odd arrangement, but one that I have seen exist in some airports, such as Keflavík, Prague, and Frankfurt [C gates] - Kastrup Airport still follows the "conventional" rule where only Schengen arrivals go to the duty-free section while non-Schengen arrivals take a separate corridor directly to baggage claim).

Fittingly for a lounge in a hub airport, the SAS lounge is very large, taking up two floors; it is divided into various zones, including spaces for dining, work, and relaxation. Something I especially like about it is the large kids' zone and the pets' zone: I appreciate the effort to cater for all potential kinds of passengers, not just the "intended clientele" of men who go on business trips alone (or occasionally, but far from certainly, alongside their wives).

Views of the lounge:

As this flight was a morning flight and the time was 6:30 local time, the food offerings in the lounge were breakfast fare.

I had myself a rather unconventional breakfast of bacon, tomatoes, cottage cheese, and Danish butter cookies (as there were no eggs other than soft-boiled), alongside a hot chocolate to keep me awake.

While on prior flights from Copenhagen I had to wait - a substantial time even - until the Gate was announced, in this flight it was listed on the screens straight away. This made planning my timing for leaving the lounge much easier.

At around 7:15, I left the lounge and walked to gate E20. This direction led me to the outskirts of the airport, away from where most of the amenities were, and the walk did not have much in the way of interesting things apart from a scale model of the Airport.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Interestingly, although I was told in the check-in that my gate would be a remote stand, the boarding was actually done through the jetbridge. I suspect that this was due to weather conditions.

Boarding began at around 7:45, five minutes before the scheduled time, and I was among the first to board, reaching the plane at 7:50. As a passenger with a non-visible disability, I am qualified for priority boarding, though I only make use of it in my solo flights for obvious reasons.

Aircraft information:
EI-SIS "Borghild Viking"
Airbus A320-251NEO (construction number 10941)
Delivered new to SAS 7 October 2022; 3 years and 5 months old at the time of the flight.

This was my first (and as of the initial writing of this report, the only) time flying on that plane.

On the A320neo, SAS utilizes Recaro BL3520 seats having 18-inch seat width and 29-inch row pitch, in a 3-3 configuration. However, the first ten rows of the cabin (1 to 10) have increased legroom seats with 30-inch pitch, and the emergency exit row seats have 34-inch pitch.

There are 30 rows of 6 seats each, making for a total of 180 seats in the cabin.

Each seat has one USB-A plug, located at the seatback in front, which is good for charging smartphones and tablets on the go, but laptop users get the short end of the stick. There was no in-flight entertainment whatsoever, though there was Wi-Fi in the flight (using Viasat technology; free for high-tier SAS frequent flyers, paid for everyone else).

In the annoyingly-persistent European short-haul tradition, Business class does not use dedicated seats, only economy-class seats with the middle seat left vacant and unbookable, which enables the boundary between Business and Economy to be moved dynamically. Business class usually takes up much of the increased legroom seats; in this particular flight, the boundary between Business and Economy class was set at Rows 5/6, which meant there were effectively 10 business seats and 165 economy seats.

The seats themselves were cheap, thin, and hard. Although they had an adjustable armrest, they had no heardrest whatsoever, which messed with my muscle memory, as the short-haul Economy seats I am most used to are the Collins Meridian seats on board El Al's 737 Economy class cabin, which do have headrests. While their thinness means that the 29-inch pitch leaves just as much legroom as 32-inch pitch does with stockier seats - and in my particular case, made stowing my fursuit head bag (a large personal item that does not fit into all overhead compartments) under the seat in front of me easier - the seats were not particularly comfortable. In the preceding flight from Rome to Copenhagen, they outright became uncomfortable after two hours of flight time, although as this flight was only for one-and-a-half hours this was not even an issue. Based on my experience in the Rome-Copenhagen flight, there was also not enough room to store both my iPad and my chargers in the seat's storage pocket, but I went around it by simply keeping my chargers in my hoodie's pockets.

This sort of hard product is barely adequate on most intra-European flights (which are one- to two-hour hops), and completely unacceptable on flights of three or more hours.

Unfortunately, this state of affairs - spartan seats, no in-flight entertainment, and no distinct business class, - is very common across many European airlines. While this is understandable in low-cost carriers, the fact that full-service airlines (such as Lufthansa, SWISS, and SAS) do so as well is a travesty, and even a few steps shy of scamming their own customers, doubly so when their soft product and service are excellent. The short-haul fleets of full-service airlines should, as a bare minimum, have thicker and more comfortable seats with at least 30-inch pitch, a bring-your-own-screen IFE system (where you connect your smartphone or tablet to an internal Wi-Fi network without internet connection, and use it as the IFE system's screen), and larger recliners in Business class.

Cabin view:

View from the seat:

PSU detail:

My seat for this flight was seat 5F, the back-most right-hand window seat in the Business class cabin.

At 8:19, the crew began a safety demonstration, and boarding completed was sounded at 8:22. However, at 8:24, an announcement was made that pushback would be delayed due to lack of an available tractor. Around 15 minutes later, another announcement was made that although a tractor was now available, pushback would be delayed again due to the weather; eventually, it only began at 8:53.

The weather conditions made spotting hard, as I was taking pictures on my phone and had trouble getting it to focus on the outside rather than the raindrops on the window:

SAS A350(?), Qatar 787, and Thai 777(?)

Singapore Airlines A350 and AirSerbia A319

Etihad, SAS, and Norwegian A320s

Of course, during pushback, I played the safety video I had saved on my iPad, since SAS' A320s have no screens whatsoever (not even overhead screens on the PSU) to "properly" play a safety video with.

By 9:05, we were off the ground, and by 9:12, the curtain separating Business from Economy was closed, signifying it was time to begin service.

Despite my best attempts to stay awake, however, I fell asleep not long after. I only woke up again by 10:21, at which point we were well above France and on final approach; this was immensely disappointing, as I wanted to "properly" experience SAS' business class service and see how it compares to their (excellent) economy class. I asked a flight attendant about it, and she said she decided to let me rest undisturbed as I did not outwardly signal otherwise. I also asked another passenger who was awake about the meal they were served, and they said it was an okay breakfast.

We touched down at 10:36.

Although the taxiing to the gate took a long time, it was a treasure-trove spotting-wise, especially with so many airlines I do not usually see.

A Star Alliance congregation made up of a China Airlines plane and two United planes:

Another angle of the "congregation", showing the EVA Air plane right beside:

A China Eastern Airlines 777-300ER:

American Airlines and Malaysia Airlines:

An El Al 737 that stayed at CDG overnight:

An Air Serbia A319:

And an Air France A220:

By 10:58, I was off the plane, and tried to find my way to the Extime lounge. Interestingly, boarding for the plane's flight back to Copenhagen started at the exact same time.