Toffeez
I did nine years there, never got to STO HO, but attended many courses at the smaller version of the palace you describe, in CPH.
Yes, the style was indeed lavish, but at the time, circa 1986, SAS were the third most profitable airline in the world after AA, plus one other (SQ?), yet were around number twenty two in rank of number of passengers carried, if my memory serves me right. One of their highest yield routes was LHR-ARN, which was around £530 return C-class, and it had some of the highest load factors of the whole network. So they had the money to pay generous per diems, and furnish their offices in solid pine. In fact, I'm sitting at one of their solid pine desks right now. I hope they don't want it back.
When Midland wet-leased a DC9-21 for MME-LHR circa 1994, the cabin crew were astonished that Midland could serve drinks, a hot meal, and hot towels on such a short sector. And it always amused me to baord one of the MD80s and find that the space for the first three rows of seats (at least) was taken up by a huge galley.
And the London town office. Staffed by around 100. I never did figure out what some of the middle-ranking managers actually did. Mr O'Leary would have laughed like a drain.
Last edited by Midland 331; 12th Nov 2012 at 16:10.