I just got to spend a day in Stockholm, and as you’ve probably realized, that doesn’t happen every often. Stockholm is simply too far. And getting there can be quite pricey, too. In fact, it frequently turns out cheaper to fly from Stockholm to another country than it is to fly within Sweden. True, you’d have to fly from Skavsta on a budget airline, but still, you could go to Paris if you wanted.

Bus and train from the north are a bit cheaper than flying, but who’d want to spend 10 hours sitting on a bus? Well, I did. Not that I wanted, but I had to.

And that gives me an idea. Let’s talk about travel options within Sweden today. Of course, the most obvious way would be flying. And of course the most obvious choice of an airline would be SAS. SAS stands for “Scandinavian Airlines System” and it’s not even a purely Swedish airline. If I remember correctly, it’s shared among Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

• SAS bildades 1946 genom en sammanslagning av tre nationella flygbolag i Danmark, Norge och Sverige.

SAS is just like all the other typical legacy carriers. Big, expensive, and not all that customer friendly (unless of course, you fly in Economy Extra or Business Class, then they’re very friendly). You have to pay for your food and drink not only on domestic flights, but these days also on international flights within Europe. A cheap ticket on SAS is still sometimes double or more of what a budget airline may charge for the same route.

A budget airline that serves our town and connects it with Stockholm is Norwegian.

Yes, even though the name says “Norwegian” the airline does indeed fly within Sweden as well. Its tickets are much cheaper than SAS, but the departure and arrival times may not be as convenient.
But if you’re not too picky about that, there are some real deals to be had. And the best part? Even though it’s a budget airline, it flies directly to the big international airport at Arlanda in Stockholm. Well, it’s technically in Stockholm, even though some people have been known to call it “Uppsala International.”

The airport located right in Stockholm is Bromma. It’s served by a bunch of low-cost domestic carriers and Malmö Aviation, which as the name suggests, flies mainly to Malmö and a couple of other destinations, such as Umeå and Brussels.

And finally, the other two airports that the likes of Ryanair would like you to believe are in Stockholm are Skavsta (really in Nyköping) and Västerås (really in Västerås). Both are quite a long drive from Stockholm proper.

So next time when you hear about those super cheap airfares to Stockholm, double check just which Stockholm the airline flies to. If it’s Skavsta, you may be in for a very unpleasant surprise, especially if you booked connecting trains from Stockholm Central or connecting flights from another airport. Since Skavsta is about 90 minutes (in good traffic) by bus from Stockholm Central, be sure to allow plenty of time for this transfer.

PS. I am not mentioning Skyways in this post, because does anyone even know what’s happening with them?

And we’ll talk about trains and buses another time. 🙂 (Yes, you guessed it, I’m traveling again!)