Scandinavian Airlines, SAS, has serious financial problems. Danish state broadcaster Danmarks Radio, DR, reports:
The bottom line is bleeding profusely for the airline SAS. … This, according to airline analyst Jacob Pedersen with Sydbank. “Things do not look very good. The SAS just delivered yet another huge deficit,” he explains. It is the twelfth quarter in a row that the SAS runs a deficit.
According to Swedish state broadcaster, Sveriges Television, SVT, the loss for the airline is 1.7 billion Swedish kronas (€155 million) for the quarter ending in October. SAS chief executive officer Anko van der Werff explains to SVT:
If you look back at our financial year with covid, Russia’s closed airspace, and the pilot strike this summer, this report is not surprising.
Norwegian news site Vårt Land reports that SAS lost more money in the past 12 months than in the previous 12-month period:
From November 2021 to October this year, the company lost 7.8 billion Swedish kronas [€711 million]. This deficit is bigger than it was last year, when it stood at 6.52 billion kronas [€594 million].
The DR news report cites figures showing that other airlines, among them Lufthansa, Air France, Ryanair, and Norwegian, made a profit in the last quarter.
Back in July, when 900 of its pilots went on strike this past summer, the SAS applied for so-called Chapter 11 protection in the United States. At the time, Yahoo Finance reported that the airline sought protection in order to “implement key elements of its SAS FORWARD restructuring plan.”
