‘SAS Crew Guide 2011’ Travel Mini-Handbook Goes on Sale

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has published the seventh addition of its annual SAS Crew Guide, a handily pocket-sized guidebook consisting of flight- and cabin-crew recommendations for accommodation, shopping, dining, sightseeing and nightlife in many of the cities served by SAS and its partner airlines in Star Alliance.

The SAS Crew Guide 2011 contains more than 500 tips from SAS crews and crew members from nine other Star Alliance carriers. Each tip lists a crew member’s favorite hotel, restaurant, shop, sightseeing or local experience in 22 of the cities or regions served by Scandinavian Airlines and its partners.

Cities covered range from global centers such as Beijing, Dubai, London, New York and Tokyo to smaller – but nevertheless interesting – cities such as Turku in Finland and Aalborg in Denmark. This year’s guide also explores the Côte d’Azur region in the South of France, home to the world-famous vacation spots Monace, Nice, Cannes and Saint-Tropez.

Scandinavian Airlines operates a fleet of Airbus A340-300 four-engined widebody jets and twin-engine A330-300s on its long-haul routes to North America and Asia from its hubs at Stockholm-Arlanda and Copenhagen Airport. The carrier has seven A340-300s in total, but two were put in storage as a result of the global downturn. As a result of improving traffic in 2010, SAS decided to re-activate one of the two grounded aircraft to boost service frequencies on some North America and Asia routes in its 2010 winter schedule and can bring the other back into service if needed to boost services on other routes

The guide also contains 13 personal profiles by individual crew members of their favorite cities. Another useful innovation in the book is a series of one-page ‘Escape’ mini-features – each accompanied by one or more photos – of crew members’ favorite places in and around several of the cities to escape the hustle and bustle of city life.

Another nice feature of the mini-guide is a seven-page section near the front of the book containing Top Lists, which range from a stop-press list of places which are so up to date that they only just made the deadline, to various ‘Best of’ lists.

The 352-page SAS Crew Guide 2011 is available for €15 (about $20) at www.sasguides.com.