SAS Is Returning To Tokyo Next Month

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has announced its intentions to restart its flights between the Danish and Japanese capitals of Copenhagen and Tokyo in July. The Star Alliance founding member plans to operate the service twice a week, with the restart set for July 10th.

SAS will return to Tokyo in just over a month. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

Returning next month

SAS announced yesterday morning that Saturday, July 10th will herald the return of its direct flights from Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (CPH) to Tokyo Haneda (HND). The return, Denmark-bound flights will correspondingly restart two days later, on Monday, July 12th.

As well as this Saturday/Monday rotation, SAS will also operate a second weekly service departing Copenhagen on Wednesdays. Correspondingly, the week’s second return flight from Tokyo will be on Fridays. The airline’s booking site lists the schedule as follows.

• SK983: Copenhagen Kastrup 14:10 – Tokyo Haneda 07:55 (+1). 10 hours 45 minutes, operated on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
• SK984: Tokyo Haneda 11:50 – Copenhagen Kastrup 16:10. 11 hours and 20 minutes, operates on Mondays and Fridays.

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SAS will deploy the Airbus A330-300 on these flights. Photo: N509FZ via Wikimedia Commons

It appears that the equipment in question for these revived services will be the Airbus A330-300. Data from ch-aviation.com shows that SAS has nine of these in its fleet, of which just four are presently active. According to SeatGuru, they feature a 32-flatbed business class cabin, 56 ‘SAS Plus’ premium economy recliners, and 174 standard economy class seats.

A long history on the route

The resumption of the service will be a welcome piece of good news for SAS amid the present challenging circumstances of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Of course, airlines will be happy to get any temporarily suspended route back up and running.

However, this one is of particular significance for SAS, as it has a long history of serving Tokyo. Its services to the Japanese capital began 64 years ago, in 1957. At this time, the airline, which serves as the flag carrier for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, flew from Copenhagen to Tokyo using Douglas DC-7s. These flights traveled via Anchorage, Alaska.

SAS flew the DC-7 when it began serving Tokyo via Anchorage in 1957. Photo: SAS Museet via Flickr

Other recent restarts

SAS’s Copenhagen-Tokyo route is not the only corridor on which the airline has been able to restart service. It suspended its Copenhagen-Shanghai services in January 2020, but announced last August that it was hoping to restart them the following month. It received approval to do so as of September 29th, 2020, after eight months out of action on the route.

More recently, the carrier has been bolstering its USA-bound services. Indeed, SAS recommended service on the Copenhagen-Los Angeles corridor just last month. It now serves LAX three times a week with the Airbus A350. Meanwhile, July will see it deploy the A330 on its revived services between Oslo and Newark twice a week.

What do you make of SAS’s plans to restart its Copenhagen to Tokyo flights? Is this a service that you’ve used previously? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

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