A ribbon-cutting ceremony by MIA Deputy Director Ken Pyatt (center), SAS General Manager-Americas Max Knagge (left of center) and Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau President & CEO Bill Talbert (right of center).
New route gives MIA nonstop service to all five Nordic countries.
MIAMI – On October 29, officials from Miami-Dade County and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) celebrated the airline’s launch of weekly Miami-Stockholm service at Miami International Airport with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and gate reception for the route’s first passengers. Following the ribbon-cutting, the inaugural departure of SAS flight #958 to Stockholm received a water cannon salute from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
The new weekly nonstop service, which will be operated on Sundays with Airbus A330-300 aircraft seating 266 passengers in the new SAS cabin, joins existing routes from Miami to Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Reykjavik – giving MIA nonstop flights to all five countries in the Nordic region for the first time ever.
“We are thrilled that SAS has chosen to expand its presence at MIA and add to the Copenhagen and Oslo routes it launched just a year ago,” said Miami-Dade Aviation Director Emilio T. Gonzalez. “In addition to all the Nordic countries, MIA now serves 25 destinations throughout Europe – the most ever in our airport’s history.”
The addition of the Stockholm route also continues MIA’s strong year of international air service growth. Six other international passenger airlines have launched new routes in 2017: Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris began four weekly flights to Guadalajara and daily service to Mexico City on February 1; Canadian airline First Air began charter passenger flights on February 4 from Ontario; low-cost transatlantic airline WOW air launched thrice-weekly service to Reykjavik, Iceland on April 5; Avianca Brazil began daily service to Sao Paulo on June 24; Aer Lingus launched three weekly flights to and from Dublin, Ireland on September 6; EL AL Israel Airlines will begin three weekly flights from Tel Aviv on November 1.
“We have been looking forward to opening another direct route to the USA, this time between Miami and beautiful Stockholm,” says Max Knagge, General Manager Americas at SAS. “We always try to offer our customers a unique and special travel experience with SAS and we now fly direct from Scandinavia to seven destinations in the USA.”
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