Following Christmas with my husband in Mexico City, I almost immediately departed for another trip: a Scandinavian Retreat in Stockholm, with my mom. In this series of reviews I’m reviewing all the SAS lounges that I accessed, including the SAS lounge in Newark, in Stockholm and in Copenhagen.

On the outbound, I took flight SK904 from Newark EWR to Stockholm Arlanda ARN, departing 17:40PM and arriving 7:30AM the next day. Although I booked a Light (basic) fare, my Flying Blue Gold (as it maps onto SkyTeam’s Elite Plus status) status provided priority services and lounge access for the entirety of the trip. That’s also how I was able to enter this lounge.

In this post in this series I will review the SAS Lounge at Stockholm Arlanda ARN, Terminal 5. I was here once before, back in August 2024, when I gave a combined review of this lounge, the business class experience of SAS, as well as the SAS Lounge at Newark EWR. This time I’m dedicating separate posts to each lounge, having already reviewed the SAS Lounge in Newark EWR, and have also reviewed the premium economy (SAS Plus) flight experience.

Stockholm Arlanda’s Terminal 5 is a beautiful, modern facility, and the SAS Lounge fits into it very nicely. The lounge design is very Scandinavian, being minimalist with a focus on natural materials, especially wood and earth tones. At the early hour that I arrived the lounge was not empty but far from busy, and I could see the lounge’s comfy seating getting hard to come by at peak times. What I was less impressed by was the food. There were two buffets, though only the main one was open at this early hour, which served a fairly limited spread of hot and cold options.

Note that there are two SAS Lounges in terminal 5: one in the E concourse and one in the F concourse, which is actually called the ‘SAS Lounge by Mastercard’. I visited the former, and all information here will be about this lounge.

1. Location and Hours
2. Access Requirements
3. Seating and Design
4. Food and Drinks
5. Showers and Restrooms
6. Summary

Location and Hours

The SAS Lounge doesn’t have clear opening times, but Google tells me 7am-11pm. As per the SAS website, the lounge opens an hour before the first scheduled SAS flight, and closes 30 minutes before the last SAS flight leaves. However, I could not find ‘official’ opening hours.

To get to the lounge, you will turn left right as you come out of security. Regardless of whether you take the general or fast track lane, everybody goes in the same direction. As you pass the first duty free shops, you’ll start to see overhead signage, so follow the signs to ‘All Gates’, and eventually the signs for ‘Lounge’. The latter will eventually explicitly mention the SAS Lounge.

As you get closer you’ll want to follow the signs for the E gates, if an explicit ‘SAS Lounge’ sign isn’t available. When you ultimately turn into the E concourse, the entrance to the SAS Lounge will appear at the very beginning of the E concourse, by gate E1: you’ll see elevators on your right, which you can take up. You can also take a spiral stair case.

When you exit the elevator, take a left and you’ll be standing in front of the SAS Lounge’s entrance. To the right will be a screen with all the premium passengers of parter airlines that get access, and as you’d expect is basically SAS’s SkyTeam partners. Head inside to enter the lobby, and you’ll be greeted by friendly lounge attendants. They directed me to scan my boarding pass at the electronic entrance gates, which opened without a hitch.

Access Requirements

ou can enter the SAS Lounge in the following ways when presenting a same-day boarding pass for a SAS flight:

• As a Business Class passenger on a SAS-operated flight, or as a Business Class passengers operated on a flight by a SkyTeam or another partner, you may get access to the SAS Lounge if it is the designated partner lounge. For example, the Newark SAS Lounge also caters to all SkyTeam partners and a select few other airlines, such as Emirates and El Al.
• If on a domestic SAS flight in Premium, you can also access the lounge (though that wouldn’t happen at the Newark SAS Lounge, as there are no domestic SAS flights departing from there)..
• Gold members or above in SAS’ Eurobonus frequent flyer program can access the lounge.
• SkyTeam Elite Plus members traveling on a same-day SAS flight can access the lounge.
• You can buy access to the SAS Lounge for $60 online until 3 hours before departure, or otherwise $65 within 3 hours before departure. For the Newark SAS Lounge you may not be able to buy access at the entrance, though at other locations it will be $65.

Note that as a SAS business class passenger or if you have Eurobonus Diamond, you can enter select SAS Lounge locations upon arrival as well. This depends on the arrivals procedures at the airport. Unfortunately, given that Stockholm Arlanda separates incoming and departing passengers, arriving passengers can’t get access to the Arlanda SAS Lounge.

Seating and Design

As such the first area I passed through was the relaxation zone, designed with similar semi-rooms with couches, comfy lounge chairs and recliners. The vibe here was purposefully quiet and peaceful, especially at the early hour that I arrived. Many spaces looked like little living room setups, perhaps not so dissimilar from what you might see in an Ikea mock-up (and I mean that in the best way possible – It’s all Scandinavian design, anyway).

Beyond the initial relaxation zone are several much ‘semi-rooms’, for lack of a better word. I call them that because these spaces are all interconnected, but have permanent dividers as well as curtains hanging between them, to create smaller spaces. I like the concept as it create a more private experience, even if you’d share each space with multiple people. Within these spaces you’ll find several setups, such as living room-esque configurations or communal tables.

Moving beyond these spaces and all the way to the back, you’ll find a secluded corridor of sorts with various recliners separates by low partitions. These were quite comfortable, and provide a place to lie back and rest your eyes. Perhaps it’s not quite dark enough to actually sleep.

Moving further around the lounge, the next space is designated as a work zone. This area mostly has a bunch of low communal tables with wooden chairs that, actually, didn’t seem all that comfortable. I was surprised that this would be designated a work zone, as this didn’t seem like a setup that people would typically associate with working.

But actually, beyond these communal tables and to the left is a corridor with several little rooms with shaded glass doors. These are all little work rooms with an office chairs, desk and light, which should make for a pretty good working environment if you need privacy. Also, I just wanted to point out that on this side of the lounge there are windows: as you can see, there was a snow storm raging outside. As you’d expect, my flight ended up delayed quite a bit, but unlike the airports here in New York, the airport didn’t totally shut down because of it…

Going the other way now, there is corridor and a few steps that lead into the first of two eating areas. Here we find the signature round tables again that we have already seen both at the Newark and Copenhagen lounges. A true staple of SAS Lounge design! This eating area is a good size, with numerous communal tables with stools, as well as tables for two persons along the wall. I’d think those tables are the more comfortable option. The buffet is right on the other side of that wall, but I’ll get to the details of the food later.

Moving on and away from the eating area, you enter the ‘social’ zone. Truth be told, I’m not sure what makes this more social than the work or eating area, as much of the seating is similar. I guess it’s a way to make it clear where people can have loud conversations and where they are asked to keep their voice down.

The social zone consists of four interconnected spaces. The first one is the below, which has a few seating setups with various lounge chairs setup around coffee tables. There are also several of the work pods here, with a similar setup as what I showed before. There’s also a big circular window here which is pretty cool, as it allows you to look out over the airside terminal, down below.

The next part of the social zone is a more traditional lounge setup. Here there are several rows of opposite-facing lounge chairs with low, circular tables. I set here for a while and thought it was pretty comfortable. As you might see, the chairs are generally in good condition, except the ones with a leather upholstery, which have a more obvious sign of having been sat on a lot. The windows are nice, as they create a sense of space and allow you to people watch: down below is the landside part of the terminal, with all the checkin desks. It’s fascinating to see what luggage some people trudge around with!

Entering the third part of the social zone, there is at first more of the lounge chairs, but in the back you’ll find the fourth section, which has several communal tables. That includes long tables along the wall, as well as some of the signature SAS Lounge round tables. There are also restrooms just on the other side, out of view of the picture. I’ll review these later.

Leaving the social zone you’ll enter the second eating area. There is a second buffet here, but at this early morning hour, next to nothing was served here, and as a matter of fact, sign was posted directing guests to the other buffet. The fact that there is such a large buffet her, though, points to how busy this lounge likely gets at peak times. i will add that the seating here wads more along the lines of high top communal tables, rather than low tables, which may not be ideal for everybody.

Beyond this dining area you’re already back to the lounge entrance gates, and from here you can exit the lounge. So, we’ve come full circle. I do think this is a nice lounge overall with some nice visual design that works well as a whole. I think it’s a typical Scandinavian aesthetic with a lot of wood and muted grey/blue tones, which I think lend it a calming vibe. I do think that the work and dining areas could benefit from less communal setups and more private seating options, but I did see plenty people take the food to other parts of the lounge as well (and that’s exactly what I did as well).

Food and Drinks

As I mentioned, there’s two dining areas in this lounge. The one further away from the entrance was where breakfast was served during my visit. It has two islands that have all the food, and then drinks are predominantly along the walls.

There were hot and cold food options, and these were typical Western breakfast items. As such, there were hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, something that looked like bacon, some sides (?) to go with that, and also hot oatmeal.

Amongst the cold options were a selection of cheeses and cold cuts, as well as slices of cucumber and lettuce. These seemed like the kind of things to put on slices of bread, which were indeed provided over on the other island. There were also premade chia puddings, and a variety of topics that you could put on that – or on the oatmeal, I suppose. Along the wall there were also some sweet breads and pastries.

In terms of drinks that were plenty of options. There was a fridge filled with alcohol-free beer, a soda fountain with various popular options, taps for still and sparkling water, a beer tap pouring ‘Norlands Guld’ beer (never had it, though), and tanks with infused water or orange juice. Within the cooler beside the orange juice were bottles of red (?), white and sparkling wine, as well as some further sodas. These same wines were also displayed a little further away, in case you don’t want them cold. Finally, there was a hot drink station serving all the usual teas and coffees.

Around the corner from the main buffet was a second hot drink station, I suppose so that those seated in the relaxation area don’t need to enter the dining area if they want a cup of coffee. Though, ironically, there was a sign stating the machine doesn’t work, so…

Moving over to the second dining area, there was a similar setup there in terms of there being tow large islands, and space along the wall for further items. However, as I mentioned, the other buffet had all the food at this time. Here there wasn’t more than a small selection of fruits and cookies.

While there was definitely something to eat at this time, the spread wasn’t particularly impressive. The truth is that I had high hopes after my experience with the buffet in the Newark EWR lounge, where I thought dinner was pretty great. So, perhaps it’s just a breakfast thing? If I ever come back here, I might try to secure an evening flight, so I can sample the dinner options…

Showers and Restrooms

The SAS Lounge at ARN does have showers, though unfortunately I wasn’t able to take a peak and make some pictures of them, as they were locked.

There were two restrooms at the lounge, one by the relaxation zone, and another by the social zone. The one by the relaxation zone also had the showers, see below. Entering to the right, the restrooms are mixed, and so there are only toilet stalls, and no urinals.

Entering the restrooms there are two sinks to the right, and two stalls to the left. There was also a corridor just out the picture here, and following it there were a few more stalls there, for a total of four stalls.

Entering one of these, there was a full setup, including a sink and amenities such as hand soap. I’ve noticed such setups in more places in Sweden, so it’s possible this is a cultural norm in the country.

By the social zone is another set of restrooms, behind a shaded black glass partition. Here there were five toiler stall, and no urinals, as was the case with the other restrooms. You’ll see on the doors that some have symbols for both men and women, while one had just the male figure, and another just the female figure – no idea why. Inside the restrooms once again ahd the full setup, including sinks and necessary amenities.

Overall, the restrooms were plentiful, practical and very clan. Of course it was early in the morning so it’d be interesting to see their condition late at night, when the last SAS flight is about to leave.

Summary

Overall, I did like spending time in the Arlanda SAS Lounge. It’s a nice facility with a pleasant, very Scandinavian design language. I do enjoy the color palette, with the wood, earth tones, greys and blues, as I feel it makes for a calming aesthetic. I also thought the seating and various facilities generally looked good and were comfortable to use. In that respect, the social zone and relaxation zone were the nicest places to hang out, with comfortable chairs and couches, and it was especially nice how the relaxation zone had partitions to offer some seclusion and a sense of privacy.

What I was not impressed by was the food. The spread was a little limited, and what was there was a bit basic. I blame it on the time of day: it was early morning and this was breakfast. Based on my experience in Newark, and what I saw at Copenhagen (to be reviewed soon), the food gets significantly better around lunchtime.