SAS Will Fly You To Israel — Yet Won’t Serve You a Kosher Meal

SAS Airlines announced recently that it will start flying to Tel Aviv, Israel, from its hub in Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of a winter route expansion. Yet, despite seeking to acquire Jewish travelers with this route, it remains the only transatlantic airline that doesn’t offer Kosher food to its passengers.

SAS, also known as Scandinavian Airlines, is the national airline of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. These countries have a Jewish population of approximately 24,000 (15,000 in Sweden, 6,400 in Denmark, and 1,500 in Norway).

SAS said the Tel Aviv flights will start on October 26, 2025, with three weekly flights year-round: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. The airline will allow connections to key European cities and — more importantly for Jewish travelers — to the US. (The airline also announced flights to Vienna, Marrakech, Madeira, Fuerteventura, and Kittilä from Copenhagen.)

“It’s exciting to unveil these new destinations for the winter season, providing our customers with even more opportunities to explore and enjoy unique experiences,” says Henrik Winell, Vice President of Network at SAS. “With an expanded network and increased seat capacity, connectivity throughout Scandinavia will be significantly enhanced — ensuring greater flexibility, convenience, and more options for travelers to reach their favorite locations.”

Until now, the only airline connecting Scandinavia with Israel was a once-weekly seasonal flight to Oslo on Israir. Those traveling would need to have a layover in Frankfurt, Paris, or Warsaw.

The airline last flew to Tel Aviv in March 2016. At the time, a company spokeswoman said, “Tel Aviv is an expensive destination for us to operate, with tough competition that has also become unprofitable for us.” They added that “the political instability [referring to Operation Protective Edge in 2014] is affecting the airline’s operations.”

Since SAS suspended Israel flights back in 2016, the airline switched from Star Alliance to SkyTeam after Air France-KLM bought a 19.9% stake in the airline. Meanwhile, the airline also launched a codeshare agreement with EL AL on some routes within Europe.

Why no Kosher Meals on SAS

Notably, SAS is one of the only European full-service airlines that does not currently serve Kosher meals or even Halal meals. When asked on social media about it on X/Twitter, the airline replied that it stopped offering Kosher meals in 2023 “due to low demand,” and claimed the airline “discard[ed] more than 95% of the Kosher meals we purchased from our suppliers. That’s not sustainable, and that’s why we removed the meals from our offering.”

Kosher meals were removed in April 2023 due to low demand. The demand was so low, that we had to discard more than 95% of the kosher meals we purchased from our suppliers. That’s not sustainable, and that’s why we removed the meals from our offering. /NN

— SAS – Scandinavian Airlines (@SAS) February 17, 2024

When asked about buying fewer Kosher meals, they replied (translated from Swedish): “Before we removed kosher meals, our purchase volume was the smallest possible amount we could buy from our supplier.” Once, they told a customer to order Vegan meals which “have no meat or animal products present during the cooking process which many regard as close to Kosher you can get with the meal options we have available.” and suggested that if “the meal options doesn’t follow your diet, you are always welcome to bring your own.”

This comes as other airlines that fly across the Atlantic — such as SAS’s former (Lufthansa, Swiss, United) and current partners (Air France/KLM, Virgin Atlantic and Delta) — offer and sometimes improve onboard Kosher options. You would be hard-pressed to find a full-service carrier that does not serve Kosher or Halal meals on these routes.

We used to have kosher meals onboard our flights, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough demand for these meals, which lead to a high amount of food waste. To combat this, we instead recommend choosing our vegan option. /NN

— SAS – Scandinavian Airlines (@SAS) January 20, 2025

Even airlines based in countries with little to virtually no Jewish community (such as New Zealand, Peru, or Taiwan) serve Kosher meals. The only airlines that fly across the Atlantic and don’t serve Kosher meals are low-cost holiday airlines, such as Norse, Play, or French Bee, which serve meals on order.

So if Taiwanese airlines can reliably serve Kosher meals, why can’t a Scandinavian airline?

Ironically, SAS does offer Kosher meals — but only at its lounge at Newark Airport, yet reportedly only for El Al customers. (As mentioned above, SAS has a codeshare agreement with El AL, and the Newark lounge is used for El Al business customers.)

Let’s hope that the launch of Israel flights gets SAS to resume Kosher Meals as well, someday.

We reached out to SAS and did not receive a reply as of press time.