SAS keeps stake in Widerøe, for now

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) will be raising needed cash by selling off its short-haul, Norwegian-based airline Widerøe, but won’t be cutting its ownership ties to the carrier just yet. SAS doesn’t intend to shed its stake in Widerøe completely until 2016. SAS reported just before the weekend that it had struck a deal to sell 80 [...]

EasyJet takes off for Norway

EasyJet, the low-fare airline launched by the son of a Greek shipowner, will start flying a route between London and Bergen next month, and looks set to pose more serious competition to Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). EasyJet also is expected to expand its routes to and from Norwegian airports. “We’re looking at more routes to Norway,” [...]

More red ink at SAS

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), which announced the sale of its ground services division this week as part of a major cost-cutting effort, didn’t manage to head off more heavy losses in its own first quarter. The losses announced Friday, though, weren’t as bad as expected. SAS struck a deal to eventually sell off its SAS Ground [...]

SAS defies bonus ban, under probe

After Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) defied a domestic ban and reinstated its bonus program for business travellers this week, competition authorities opened an immediate investigation and Norway’s consumer protection council urged the government to nip SAS’ defiance in the bud. The government said it remains firm in its decision to uphold the ban, but an ongoing case with [...]

SAS defends bonus program

UPDATED: Norwegian politicians have joined the chorus of critics furious with management at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), for paying themselves large bonuses at a time when other employees of the financially ailing airline were being laid off or forced to take pay cuts. “Perverse” and “unwise” were among the descriptions used by members of the Norwegian [...]

Banks demanding more cuts at SAS

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is under new pressure from both its banks and the three national governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway that are its major shareholders. Intense negotiations involving the Swedish finance ministry reportedly won SAS a bit more breathing room, but the airline still must sell assets and cut costs in order to get [...]

SAS tries to head off another crisis

UPDATED: Weeks of new crisis speculation that’s been swirling around long-troubled Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) effectively forced the company to reveal on Tuesday that it finally will post a third-quarter operating profit, but still must undergo another round of major cost-cutting. SAS personnel, however, aren’t willing to take another pay cut. “The situation in SAS is [...]

Airlines face off with new routes

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and its arch rival in Norway, Norwegian Air, are both planning new routes when intercontinental competition heats up next year. The plans include the return of SAS to California, more than 20 years after it stopped flying to Los Angeles. SAS has begun selling a new, non-stop route between Copenhagen and San [...]

Norway cool to bailing out SAS

Norway’s government minister in charge of business and trade doesn’t seem inclined to infuse Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) with more capital, after the airline reported more heavy losses this week. Norwegian Trade Minister Trond Giske called SAS’ financial situation “worrisome,” but he’s more interested in selling off Norway’s stake in SAS than boosting it. “I have [...]

More record profits, and some losses

State oil company Statoil reported more record profits on Tuesday after another year of high oil prices and major discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Two other big companies in which the state has ownership stakes, though, reported some large losses. Statoil remains on a roll, pumping oil revenues and profits into the state treasury [...]

Mysterious flight closed airport

The skies were blue and sunny, the runways clear of snow and ice, and traffic should have flowed routinely  through Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen (OSL) after a rough winter. Instead, the airport was forced to close on a busy spring afternoon, because of a mysterious aircraft that entered its air space and stayed there. [...]

Employees come to terms with SAS

Financially strapped Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) announced Friday that it has come to terms with its employees’ labour unions after they agreed to slash pay and benefits in another round of major cost cutting. The Danish flight attendants’ union CAU also went along, ending a conflict that had threatened to sink SAS’ entire bailout plan. SAS [...]

SAS threatened by crew conflict

Long-troubled Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) now appears threatened by conflicts within its own ranks of flight attendants. Those based in Norway and Sweden fear demands made by their Danish colleagues can be “fatal” for the airline, and some analysts agree. Newspaper Aftenposten reports that the Danish flight attendants’ union CAU seems to be backing out of [...]

Storms batter northern Norway

Central and northern Norway are being hit hard this week by storms and floods that have cancelled flights, closed roads and halted train traffic. It took 41 hours for passengers on one flight from Oslo to finally reach their destination in the northern city of Alta. The bad weather is also wreaking havoc for already-beleaguered [...]

Flight attendant’s murderer turns himself in

A 58-year-old man from Romania turned himself in to police in Malmø, Sweden on Wednesday, saying he had killed a Norwegian flight attendant for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) in Copenhagen the day before. “He came in around 4:30pm and said he had taken the life of a woman in Denmark, and that he was the man [...]

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