SAS returned to India after 17 years, but its first Copenhagen – Mumbai flight did not quite make it to India, turning back after four hours in the air due to missing final regulatory approval.
SAS has returned to India after a 17-year absence, but the relaunch did not go as planned.
The inaugural Copenhagen (CPH) – Mumbai (BOM) flight departed about four hours late, then turned around after roughly four hours in the air and returned to Copenhagen. According to Flightradar24, the aircraft made it as far as Azerbaijan airspace before heading back.
The reason? It wasn’t weather or a mechanical issue. No unruly passenger or medical emergency.
SAS told the Times of India that the flight returned because a final regulatory approval from relevant authorities had not been secured before the aircraft reached Indian airspace.
That is not exactly the triumphant relaunch SAS had in mind!
A Rough Start For An Important Route
Copenhagen – Mumbai marks SAS’ return to India after 17 years, and the airline is operating the service with Airbus A330 aircraft. It is also part of SAS’ attempt to rebuild its longhaul network under SkyTeam and strengthen Copenhagen as a more useful global hub.
India is a logical market for SAS. There is strong business demand and strong so-called VFR (visiting-friends-and-relatives) demand, and Copenhagen can work as a connecting point between India and Scandinavia or parts of Northern Europe.
But this is a very poor first impression.
Passengers boarded a flight to Mumbai and instead got an eight-hour flight to nowhere, ending where they started. That is frustrating under any circumstances, but especially on an inaugural flight celebrating a major longhaul return…
How Does This Happen?
I do not know who dropped the ball here, but if the reported reason is accurate, this is obviously the sort of problem that should be fully sorted before passengers board the aircraft. International flying requires overflight rights, landing approvals, slot coordination, security approvals, and other paperwork that most passengers never think about…things that SAS says it spent months working on. But it appears that final approval, even if generally a mere formality, was never granted.
If a final approval was missing, of course SAS did the right thing once the issue became clear. But the fact that the flight departed Copenhagen in the first place raises the obvious question: why was this not resolved before takeoff?
CONCLUSION
SAS’ first flight back to India in 17 years turned into an embarrassing false start, with the Copenhagen – Mumbai inaugural returning to Copenhagen after about four hours in the air due to missing final regulatory approval.
This does not mean the route is doomed: Copenhagen – Mumbai still makes sense, and SAS should be able to recover from this quickly once the paperwork issue is resolved, though it says it may take a few days.
But for passengers on the inaugural flight, this was a miserable start: a long delay, an eight-hour flight to nowhere, and no India at the end of it. Not exactly the welcome-back-to-India moment SAS was hoping for…
