Gothenburg rarely appears on the radar of American business travelers, which is precisely why the routing deserves attention: there's no nonstop from the Midwest, so business class from St. Louis to Gothenburg means connecting through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Copenhagen, with total travel time typically running 12-14 hours including the layover. My preference after years flying this corridor is SAS through Copenhagen — as Sweden's flagship carrier, SAS operates the route with genuine cultural fluency, and their A330/A350 business class cabins offer direct-aisle access with proper lie-flat seating, a meaningful upgrade from the older configurations still found on some competitor aircraft.
Lufthansa via Frankfurt is the workhorse alternative, and depending on your outbound date you may find yourself on their newer Allegris cabin, which introduces four distinct business class seat types on select aircraft — worth checking your specific equipment before booking, since not every Frankfurt rotation has been retrofitted yet. KLM through Amsterdam rounds out the options, and Schiphol remains one of Europe's more civilized connecting airports for business class passengers, with the KLM Crown Lounges offering a quieter buffer than Frankfurt's often-chaotic Terminal 1. My insider tip: if connecting through Copenhagen on SAS, request the domestic-to-international transfer track at CPH rather than the standard Schengen corridor — it's faster and less trafficked by tour groups, shaving real time off tight connections.
Scandinavia's short, bright summers make May through September the sweet spot both for weather in Gothenburg and for award and fare availability, since business travel demand into Sweden's second city stays comparatively light year-round. Because pricing on this three-airline, one-connection route fluctuates with fuel surcharges and seasonal demand more than headline sales, setting up fare alerts is the smartest move — tracking daily movement will catch the occasional pricing anomaly long before it hits public deal sites.
