LAX losing its SK Stockholm link, as the flight is relocated to Copenhagen.


SAS is opening a year-round route to Los Angeles from Copenhagen. The first flight will be in January 2020. Big demand from leisure travelers in Denmark and a more attractive timetable with daily flights mean that the route will be part of the flight program from the new year.

To date, SAS has operated the route from Stockholm to Los Angeles, but has now decided to relocate flights departing from the Swedish capital to the Danish capital in the new year.

“Los Angeles is one of the most in-demand intercontinental routes from Copenhagen, and an important route for our leisure customers in particular, who are keen to visit the American West Coast. We continuously assess our offering in order to optimize our network for our travelers,” says Karl Sandlund.

The new time schedule for the route starting January 13th:

Flight SK931 departs from CPH 09:35 and arrives in Los Angeles 12:15 the same day.
Flight SK932 departs from Los Angeles 14:00 and arrives in CPH 10:10 the day after.

Starting on March 31st there will be daily departures from Copenhagen.


SAS ANNOUNCES NEW ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES FROM COPENHAGEN
https://www.sasgroup.net/en/sas-announc ... openhagen/

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Kiwirob wrote:

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Yes and also the "Flygskam" (shame of flying). CPH also offers better connections than ARN, especially from Poland and northern Germany

Kiwirob wrote:

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Highly likely. I believe it's also a partial reason behind HKG having been cut from ARN last year (which was also transferred to CPH).

I would say that the rate of Swedish crown heading south is the major problem here...... $20-30 extra tax alone on a trip to LAX wouldn't have this kind of effect. A trip to the US is easy $ 500-1000 more expensive (depending on what you do on your holiday) today than a couple of years ago due to the rate of the Swedish crown.

Shame how environmental taxes drive flight away, simply across the border which obviously hurts economic activity in Sweden for benefit of Denmark with zero benefit environmentally.
Actually might be worse as I believe Sweden-LA market is larger than Denmark-LA so the Swedes must now take an additional flight to connect which is likely worse environmentally.

Well, Norwegian decided to "take a break" on offering CPH-LAX this winter. That opens up for more PAX.

Last year, SK also moved their Hong Kong flights from ARN to CPH.

Sure, the Swedish tax and poor value of the SEK might be considered, IMHO I think that CPH will capture more PAX than ARN.

Seems like a lot of long haul from ARN doesn't work or is seasonal at best.

SASViking wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Yes and also the "Flygskam" (shame of flying). CPH also offers better connections than ARN, especially from Poland and northern Germany

Isn't Flygskam aimed more toward domestic flying, or train-travel in lieu of air travel, rather than long-haul flying? I find it interesting for ARN to pass the torch to CPH, though both are great Scandinavian gateways.

mercure1 wrote:

Shame how environmental taxes drive flight away, simply across the border which obviously hurts economic activity in Sweden for benefit of Denmark with zero benefit environmentally.
Actually might be worse as I believe Sweden-LA market is larger than Denmark-LA so the Swedes must now take an additional flight to connect which is likely worse environmentally.

Not necessarily on the connection. Aside from Stockholm itself and places like Uppsala that also have easy train rides to ARN, a lot of potential Swedish passengers in places like Malmo or Goteborg would be trading a short (backtracking) flight for an even shorter one, or more likely a train in the case of people coming from Skane.

Ha, so much for Stockholm being the capital of Scandinavia. With SAS first moving HKG and now LAX + Norwegian cutting their ARN-US network, ARN is back to square one again with only EWR/ORD. Maybe time to shelve the preclearance plans and with dropping pax numbers stop grandiose expansion plans at ARN.

I believe that ARN-LAX O&D is substantially higher than CPH-LAX O&D, but with a weak Swedish krona, flygskam and the aviation tax it makes more sense to move it to CPH where SAS also has a better feeder network. Still a shame ARN is losing the route, but I guess they had it coming.

For whatever reason (flygskam, high taxes, a shrinking/leisure oriented market/a weaker economy+weaker crown) SAS will be inevitably concentrate most if not all of long-haul flying in CPH. There's no way around this. The Scandinavian market is basically composed by three small/medium, highly fragmented markets with fluctuating demand directed in variable numbers to a fairly small number of selected destinations - there's no way that 3 hubs for one airline are going to prove sustainable, save for the large domestic markets served respectively by OSL and ARN. CPH is the de-facto air capital, the one with better geographical location (closer to Europe, and less on the northern fringes), the better infrastructure (already in place), the bigger catchment, the bigger market, the better weather, the better connections.

That's really too bad since it was very convenient for me....

The777Man

LAXintl wrote:

The new time schedule for the route starting January 13th:

Flight SK931 departs from CPH 09:35 and arrives in Los Angeles 12:15 the same day.
Flight SK932 departs from Los Angeles 14:00 and arrives in CPH 10:10 the day after.
/

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

Also interesting that they will change the flight number with the move.

It’s interesting how ARN is failing despite being located in the biggest city in the Nordics both population wise and economical. Stockholm has more headquarters of global companies than Helsinki and Copenhagen combined.

B747forever wrote:

Ha, so much for Stockholm being the capital of Scandinavia. With SAS first moving HKG and now LAX + Norwegian cutting their ARN-US network, ARN is back to square one again with only EWR/ORD. Maybe time to shelve the preclearance plans and with dropping pax numbers stop grandiose expansion plans at ARN.

I believe that ARN-LAX O&D is substantially higher than CPH-LAX O&D, but with a weak Swedish krona, flygskam and the aviation tax it makes more sense to move it to CPH where SAS also has a better feeder network. Still a shame ARN is losing the route, but I guess they had it coming.

SAS also has MIA-ARN in the winter.

Norwegian still flies FLL-ARN year round and OAK/LAX/JFK-ARN seasonally.

B747forever wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

The new time schedule for the route starting January 13th:

Flight SK931 departs from CPH 09:35 and arrives in Los Angeles 12:15 the same day.
Flight SK932 departs from Los Angeles 14:00 and arrives in CPH 10:10 the day after.
/

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

Also interesting that they will change the flight number with the move.

SK931/932 is the same flightnumber as when SAS first opened CPH-LAX back in 1954. So it makes perfect sense for them to reuse it

B747forever wrote:

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

.

However, I do believe there is some slack in the scheduled flight time

kanye wrote:

It’s interesting how ARN is failing despite being located in the biggest city in the Nordics both population wise and economical. Stockholm has more headquarters of global companies than Helsinki and Copenhagen combined.

But quite a few large international companies have their Nordic HQ in Copenhagen

kanye wrote:

It’s interesting how ARN is failing despite being located in the biggest city in the Nordics both population wise and economical. Stockholm has more headquarters of global companies than Helsinki and Copenhagen combined.

CPH have a slightly larger catchment area than ARN. CPH is located right in the middle of the Øresund region, the most populated area in Scandinavia.
CPH is also a lot better for connections as it's closed to mainland Europe.

MAH4546 wrote:

B747forever wrote:

Ha, so much for Stockholm being the capital of Scandinavia. With SAS first moving HKG and now LAX + Norwegian cutting their ARN-US network, ARN is back to square one again with only EWR/ORD. Maybe time to shelve the preclearance plans and with dropping pax numbers stop grandiose expansion plans at ARN.

I believe that ARN-LAX O&D is substantially higher than CPH-LAX O&D, but with a weak Swedish krona, flygskam and the aviation tax it makes more sense to move it to CPH where SAS also has a better feeder network. Still a shame ARN is losing the route, but I guess they had it coming.

SAS also has MIA-ARN in the winter.

Norwegian still flies FLL-ARN year round and OAK/LAX/JFK-ARN seasonally.

LAX/OAK/JFK does not show up for S20. Maybe Norwegian will load those flight at a later point, if their long haul venture survives this winter...

Anyway, there has been a steady loss of long haul routes with all those route being year round the past years and HKG/LAX moved to CPH.

SASViking wrote:

B747forever wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

The new time schedule for the route starting January 13th:

Flight SK931 departs from CPH 09:35 and arrives in Los Angeles 12:15 the same day.
Flight SK932 departs from Los Angeles 14:00 and arrives in CPH 10:10 the day after.
/

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

Also interesting that they will change the flight number with the move.

SK931/932 is the same flightnumber as when SAS first opened CPH-LAX back in 1954. So it makes perfect sense for them to reuse it

That makes sense. Thanks for the historical tidbit!

Someone83 wrote:

B747forever wrote:

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

.

However, I do believe there is some slack in the scheduled flight time

kanye wrote:

It’s interesting how ARN is failing despite being located in the biggest city in the Nordics both population wise and economical. Stockholm has more headquarters of global companies than Helsinki and Copenhagen combined.

But quite a few large international companies have their Nordic HQ in Copenhagen

Quite a few yes, in 2015 it was 41, and 125 in Stockholm which is more than all other Nordic countries combined.

I recall reading in an interview when SK relaunched LAX in 2016 they chose to do it from ARN as it was the far largest Scandinavia market in demand to Los Angeles region.

If SAS ever wants to compete with especially KLM, Lufthansa and other big hub carriers, it’s important for SAS to focus on one strong single hub instead of three weak ones and here CPH makes the most sense geographically as it is closer to continental Europe, so good decision by SAS. KLM is successfully flying to a lot of small Scandinavian towns and down to AMS because SAS offers a much less convenient service the way it is now.

Cointrin330 wrote:

Seems like a lot of long haul from ARN doesn't work or is seasonal at best.

Stockholm might be a (slightly) bigger O&D market but Copenhagen has been the Nordic gateway to the Atlantic for over half a century and is a big hub. So moving LA there makes sense.

People living in the Stockholm-area ( the capital of Sweden) fail to understand that there are som 1.5 million Swedes living in southern Sweden, who can take the train or go by car to Copenhagen Airport in 20 Minutes up to 1 hour depending on where You live. So Copenhagen is a large airport not only for Danish people . Furthermore I am of the opinion thet SAS needs to have one strong hub instead of three weak ones... good decision.

And thus history completes the circle. SAS's original polar route in the 1960's was CPH-SEA-LAX operated with a DC-8-50 series aircraft. After the acquisition of the DC-8-62, it was flown CPH-LAX nonstop for several years then LAX was dropped and it was CPH-SEA for a bit until the route was eventually dropped altogether.

Using the same flight numbers as in the old days as well, SK931/932.

ss278 wrote:

And thus history completes the circle. SAS's original polar route in the 1960's was CPH-SEA-LAX operated with a DC-8-50 series aircraft. After the acquisition of the DC-8-62, it was flown CPH-LAX nonstop for several years then LAX was dropped and it was CPH-SEA for a bit until the route was eventually dropped altogether.

Using the same flight numbers as in the old days as well, SK931/932.

As far as I remember SAS started their flights between Los Angeles and Copenhagen and v .v. on November 15 - 1954 , with the Douglas DC-6B , via Sondre Stromfjord and Winnipeg.

These last years, there are so much things that Denmark got right and Sweden got wrong. It's a great country full of great people, but they definitely have to do something about the image they project to the world. Who would want to have a hub in the land of Greta Thunberg?

Northpole wrote:

People living in the Stockholm-area ( the capital of Sweden) fail to understand that there are som 1.5 million Swedes living in southern Sweden, who can take the train or go by car to Copenhagen Airport in 20 Minutes up to 1 hour depending on where You live. So Copenhagen is a large airport not only for Danish people . Furthermore I am of the opinion thet SAS needs to have one strong hub instead of three weak ones... good decision.

Completely agree. I live in Skane and have 45 min by train or car to CPH. Haven't been to Stockholm last 15 years. But this is hard for the people up there to understand, there are no borders anymore and we fly much better from CPH compared to ARN. Stockholm complex. Will never change unfortunately.

kanye wrote:

Someone83 wrote:

B747forever wrote:

1h and 45min looks a bit tight for turning around the airplane. Any slight delay on arrival will automatically mean a late departure. The current schedule has a 2hrs turn around which leaves a bit more of wiggle room.

.

However, I do believe there is some slack in the scheduled flight time

kanye wrote:

It’s interesting how ARN is failing despite being located in the biggest city in the Nordics both population wise and economical. Stockholm has more headquarters of global companies than Helsinki and Copenhagen combined.

But quite a few large international companies have their Nordic HQ in Copenhagen

Quite a few yes, in 2015 it was 41, and 125 in Stockholm which is more than all other Nordic countries combined.

And STILL.. they dont manage to get it right at ARN.

workhorse wrote:

These last years, there are so much things that Denmark got right and Sweden got wrong. It's a great country full of great people, but they definitely have to do something about the image they project to the world. Who would want to have a hub in the land of Greta Thunberg?

Greta Thunberg is a great example to all of us and all Swedes should be (and are) super proud of her.

cedarjet wrote:

workhorse wrote:

Greta Thunberg is a great example to all of us and all Swedes should be (and are) super proud of her.

Yes, right. Proudly taking the train to Kastrup to catch a flight from there. Amen.

Blaming ARN losing flights on a 16 y.o. girl. LOL.

Greater CPH (including parts of Sweden) is according to wikipedia somewhere north of 3 million. Metro Stockholm is 2.5 million. 100 miles difference on great circle mapper.

mercure1 wrote:

Shame how environmental taxes drive flight away, simply across the border which obviously hurts economic activity in Sweden for benefit of Denmark with zero benefit environmentally.

Are those taxes in place at the moment? I see SKR 410 total aviation tax and passenger charge on a ARN-LAX-ARN coach r/t. That's less than FRA-LAX-FRA, CDG-LAX-CDG, or FCO-LAX-FCO. (And far less than LON-LAX-LON.) That doesn't seem big enough to be market-distorting to me.

NiMar wrote:

Greater CPH (including parts of Sweden) is according to wikipedia somewhere north of 3 million. Metro Stockholm is 2.5 million. 100 miles difference on great circle mapper.

Greater CPH 3 million and Metro Stockholm 2.5 million, that's irrelevant. What matters is catchment areas, which are at least Denmark and Sweden with combined 15 million, and parts of Norway. And depending on ARN hub, part of Finland. CPH hub, parts of northern Poland and Germany.

It is not like people living out of mega cities travel long haul on bicycle only. They use the most convenient air hub.

I understand that SK carries a lot of belly cargo between EWR and all 3 Scandinavian hubs, but what about ORD (to maintain ARN from there)? Is it possible that ARN could lose ORD as well, leaving just EWR?

Could the Swedish government give away bilateral trafic rights to Norwegian instead? I know U.S. is open skies but some Asian countries are not.

I do not see the point of having a flag carrier that only serves major global cities through other hub cities.

That being said I fully understand the challenges that SAS had trying to go multi-hub.

ARN wrote:

Could the Swedish government give away bilateral trafic rights to Norwegian instead? I know U.S. is open skies but some Asian countries are not.
.

Many of the bilaterals, such at China and other, are joint Scandianvian. Including the important Siberian overflying rights. And these days, Norwegian is also reducing at ARN

aemoreira1981 wrote:

I understand that SK carries a lot of belly cargo between EWR and all 3 Scandinavian hubs, but what about ORD (to maintain ARN from there)? Is it possible that ARN could lose ORD as well, leaving just EWR?

As far as I know, what keeps ARN-ORD going is cargo, especially during winter where loads can be incredibly poor. EWR is much less dependent on cargo.

Nothing strange about this, Sweden is currently engaged in an ecological Crusade against aviation so such moves make sense and are to be expected. Maybe more Swedes should follow Greta's example and sail to their final destination. #vikings #backtoourroots #ecofriendly

I think the discussion is often missing what's most important for business, demand and customer loyalty. My guess is that it is similar to say Manchester and Milan where the local carrier just isnt committed hence the locals use other airlines.
While demand to both HongKong and California is greater from the Stockholm region than the CPH region, most companies/persons in Stockholm have been accustomed to and gained status with international airlines. Companies have deals with international airlines. BA flew the 767 to ARN for ages etc etc. Hence ARN LAX is not as easy as CPH LAX despite passenger numbers favouring Stockholm. SK doesn't have the same home advantage in Stockholm as it does in Copenhagen nor does SK have better access to the large corporations with HQs here. The Stockholm region is home to more MNE HQ than the rest of Scandinavia combined and it is the financial hub (banking etc) of the region but its not a market dominated by SK..This greatly affects SKs ability to leverage the local market, add on taxation and better SK feed to CPH and I think CPH is more suitable for any SK longhaul route.

It will be interesting to see where ANA starts their Scandinavian route to, will they fly to CPH for the connections and cooperation with SK or will they choose the larger destination, ARN?

In regards to flygskam. Is that serious or just one of those things dreamt up by a few ideologically convinced individuals with lots of friends in the media? I only visit Gothenburg and I have yet to see this demonstrated there but Gothenburg and Gothenburgians aren't atypical of Sweden or swedes so...

And we have a winner.....

For whatever reason (flygskam, high taxes, a shrinking/leisure oriented market/a weaker economy+weaker crown) SAS will be inevitably concentrate most if not all of long-haul flying in CPH. There's no way around this. The Scandinavian market is basically composed by three small/medium, highly fragmented markets with fluctuating demand directed in variable numbers to a fairly small number of selected destinations - there's no way that 3 hubs for one airline are going to prove sustainable, save for the large domestic markets served respectively by OSL and ARN. CPH is the de-facto air capital, the one with better geographical location (closer to Europe, and less on the northern fringes), the better infrastructure (already in place), the bigger catchment, the bigger market, the better weather, the better connections.

The above quote nicely sums up scandinavian aviation and the inherent problems for a carrier like SAS. The inevitable concentration of operations at the most efficient, accessible and desirable hub is underway and long overdue.

SKCPH

Kiwirob wrote:

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Sweden is a mess nowadays, with much crime at night and many immigration problems. Makes sense to move this flight elsewhere.

Congratulations AY! For every LH flight that moves away from ARN AY gains pax on theirs since HEL is often a lesser back track than CPH if there are no direct connections (planes, trains etc).

SK is caught in the dilemma that they can not have three LH hubs since there isn't enough passengers for it and instead the company has to focus on one airport. CPH is a detour for LH flights for all Scandinavians that do not live in the Öresund region but due infrastructure (ARN is not a good connecting airport) and historical/political reasons CPH is the compromise. However when there are no direct flights from the airport that provides the fastest route to a destination then pax will look at competing 1-stops and price will decide...

ARN and OSL will likely be healthy airports without SK LH routes, since other airlines can and will create direct O/D routes or 1-stop solutions that are more convenient than going via CPH.

Interesting how much people can read into this. A flight moved to an other airport is a sign that whole nations fall and others prosper?
Would you make the same fuss if LH moved an international connection from FRA to MUC (or ZRH, VIE or BRU)? Or BA from LHR to LGW? Oh, this is airliners.net, you probably would.
Just to put it into perspective: Danmark has about 6 Million people, Sweden 10 and Norway 5 (with population in Norway and Sweden concentrated in the southern parts). All three countries combined have about a quarter of Germany's population. Or roughly twice as much as Greater London. The whole area is well connected with motorways, train lines and flights.
DY stops flying directly from CPH. SAS thinks the area can support only one direct connection to LAX, and CPH is the better place to offer it. So be it.

Jetty wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

At a guess the taxes from Sweden is probably also part of the reason for this move??

Sweden is a mess nowadays, with much crime at night and many immigration problems. Makes sense to move this flight elsewhere.

That's just not true.

Jetty wrote:

Sweden is a mess nowadays, with much crime at night and many immigration problems. Makes sense to move this flight elsewhere.

Are you a troll or are you serious? If you are serious, could you please explain where your knowledge comes from?

Interesting to see that there still have been no "no political talk here" warning. Apparently, this kind (or side) of politics is not a problem.

Jetty wrote:

Sweden is a mess nowadays, with much crime at night and many immigration problems. Makes sense to move this flight elsewhere.

I was in Stockholm a few month ago and went to many different parts of the city (including not the fanciest ones) at all times and didn't see any of that. Any statistics? Or is it just that "every body knows it except who are unable to see"?

ei146 wrote:

Interesting how much people can read into this. A flight moved to an other airport is a sign that whole nations fall and others prosper?

A perfect look on the problem.

Back on subject. This is just a business decision for an airline with a complicate system. Having to serve three large countries with relatively small population is not easy and leads automatically to decisions that will not please everyone (just look at all the dramas they have been on a single smaller country like Switzerland with SR/LX about the split between ZRH and GVA (and to some extent other Swiss airports)).

ARNPEK wrote:

Congratulations AY! For every LH flight that moves away from ARN AY gains pax on theirs since HEL is often a lesser back track than CPH if there are no direct connections (planes, trains etc).

SK is caught in the dilemma that they can not have three LH hubs since there isn't enough passengers for it and instead the company has to focus on one airport. CPH is a detour for LH flights for all Scandinavians that do not live in the Öresund region but due infrastructure (ARN is not a good connecting airport) and historical/political reasons CPH is the compromise. However when there are no direct flights from the airport that provides the fastest route to a destination then pax will look at competing 1-stops and price will decide...

ARN and OSL will likely be healthy airports without SK LH routes, since other airlines can and will create direct O/D routes or 1-stop solutions that are more convenient than going via CPH.

My thought was also that AY will benefit from this move.

It’s also ironic that Sweden impose an aviation tax and claims it is to reduce pollution, but for Swedes Non-stop flights becomes 1-stop flights and therefore they pollute more to get to their desitination.