The Scandinavian airline SAS has found the humorous side of all the chaos from a major fire that shut down Heathrow Airport on Friday after British media outlets somehow confused the Stockholm-based carrier with a world-famous elite military unit.
Officially called Scandinavian Airline System, the carrier was created in 1946 by the governments of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden to bring together three much smaller airlines and make one large pan-Scandinavian carrier.
Despite recent trials and tribulations that resulted in SAS filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States and the Air France-KLM Group acquiring a significant 19.9% stake in the company, SAS is not to be confused with the British military’s Special Air Service.
Rather than operating commercial flights to and from Heathrow, the Special Air Service is a renowned and secretive unit of the British Army that conducts covert surveillance, hostage rescues, and other undercover operations that are often protected by so-called ‘D-notices’ that prevent the media from reporting about their activities.
As the enormity of the blaze at an electricity substation close to Heathrow Airport became clear in the early hours of Friday morning, SAS (the airline) put out a statement advising passengers due to travel to London that it had been forced to cancel all 12 return flights it had scheduled to Heathrow.
Somehow, major media outlets, including Sky News and The Guardian thought that the statement had been issued by the Special Air Service and quickly pushed out the news that the British military had cancelled flights to Heathrow.
The now infamous moment Sky News reported this has now been trolled mercilessly on social media, with thousands of amusing comments, including
- “Call of Duty Free,”
- “I knew it was a Scandinavian on the balcony all along!” – referring to the Iranian embassy siege in 1980
- “Sky News. Never letting the truth, stand in the way of a good story.”
- “Not as secretive as they used to be it seems.
In the end, SAS (the airline) got in on the joke, posting on X: “We get it, SkyNews and The Guardian – same initials, both wear uniforms, operate internationally, and move fast.”
“But only one SAS was affected by the Heathrow power outage. Spoiler: it was the one with the free coffee onboard, not the one with parachutes.”
Late on Friday, Heathrow had managed to get power restored to all four of its passengers terminals and a very small number of flights were allowed to resume, including several long-haul departures with passengers onboard
Friday night was, however, used mainly to reposition empty planes back to Heathrow that had been stranded at other airports after diverting due to the power outage.
On Saturday, Heathrow reassured passengers that it was “open and fully operational.”
“Teams across the airport continue to do everything they can to support passengers impacted by yesterday’s outage at an off-airport power substation,” a statement from the airport continued
British Airways, which is by far the largest airline operating out of Heathrow, warned, however, that it only planned to operate around 85% of its planned schedule on Saturday due to “significant operational challenges” associated with the power outage that left planes and crew out of position.
“To recover an operation of our size is extremely complex, so our customers will likely experience delays,” the airline said. “We are advising customers to travel to the airport as normal unless told otherwise. If your flight is going to be disrupted, we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know what you need to do,” the statement continued.
