The Scandinavian airline is pushing ahead with its restructuring. SAS also returns aircraft to lessors – including fairly new ones.
In early July, the management moved from SAS the ripcord. It filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. In this way, it wants to carry out the restructuring free of ongoing pressure from financiers and suppliers.
Part of the plan is raising 9.5 billion kronor (about 890 million euros) in fresh capital. SAS recently took a big step in this direction. The American financial investor Apollo Global Management invested 700 million Dollar.
Too many long-haul planes…
The other part of the restructuring plan, called SAS Forward, is a further reduction in costs. After SAS announced it would cut costs by 4 billion kroner during the pandemic, management raised the target to 7.5 billion in July.
The reduction in expenses is also to be achieved by reducing the size of the fleet. “It is very clear that we have a surplus of wide-bodied aircraft,” said CEO Anko Van der Werff in July. He was alluding to the Ukraine war and the resulting blocking of Russian airspace, which is making many routes to Asia unprofitable, as well as the lack of demand from China.
… and some too expensive short-haul airlines
Now the dimensions are clear. The Scandinavian airline wants to return ten aircraft to lessors, which corresponds to almost a tenth of the fleet. The reason for this is that the contracts are too expensive in today’s environment or the aircraft are simply no longer needed.
Specifically, SAS intends to phase out two Airbus A350 (SE-RSB and SE-RSC) and three Airbus A330-300 (LN-RKS, LN-RKT and LN-RKU) from the long-haul fleet. According to the analysis company, three Airbus A320 Neo, one A321 and one Boeing 737-700 are to disappear from the short- and medium-haul fleet Air Insight with reference to court documents.