LAXintl wrote:

OAG presentation from this week looking at the challenges Finnair faces on accessing its historic Asia markets.


https://i.ibb.co/2ZpXyzr/Finnair1.png

https://i.ibb.co/HKpLK4J/Finnair2.png

https://i.ibb.co/CQsPb3P/Finnair3.png

Exactly. Goodbye 24 rotations which where the biggest advantage of Finnair, due to own position.

Flyr's 4th 737-8 MAX and 10 aircraft in total has been delivered: LN-FGH.

WIll arrive at OSL this morning

Makes you wonder if Flyr has a future now that Norwegian is resurrecting. I suppose they didn't expect them to come back to life this fast. Is there really room for so many players on the Norwegian market?

SAS in serious problems - worst case - bankrupt ... here from SAS sent out today - analyzer see it is realistic a bankruptsy

HERE IN DANISH - from the analyzer : SAS har præsenteret planerne for omkostningsreduktioner og konvertering af gæld til egenkapital til medarbejdergrupper og kreditorer, men forhandlingerne har indtil nu ikke ført til væsentlige resultater. SAS henviser til, at en aftale er nødvendig for, at processen forbliver ”out-ofcourt” (altså ikke-retslig). Det indikerer, at en manglende aftale med medarbejdere og kreditorer
kan drive SAS ud i en retslig proces (altså rekonstruktion/betalingsstandsning/konkursbegæring). Det er vidtrækkende skridt, der understreger behovet for at nå en aftale.

Here translated to English : SAS has presented the plans for cost reductions and conversion of debt into equity to employee groups and creditors, but the negotiations have so far not led to significant results. SAS refers to the fact that an agreement is necessary for the process to remain "out-of-court" (i.e. non-judicial). It indicates that a lack of agreement with employees and creditors
can drive SAS into a judicial process (i.e. reconstruction - suspension of payments - bankruptcy petition). These are far-reaching steps that underline the need to reach an agreement.

https://news.cision.com/sas/r/update-on ... n,c3556819

Is this a potential Chapter 11 style bankruptcy - namely wave a magic wand, creditors get told to forget about seeing their money, and company carries on ?
Or is this a potential real shut-down type of bankruptcy for SAS ?

I seem to recall about 7 years ago, negotiations between SAS and various labour groups carried on over a weekend until about 3 am of Monday morning (with the proviso that at Monday 9 am the lawyers would file at court)..... at which point a compromise was found and everyone went back to work. Same thing again this time ?

Doesn't SAS have another company they could just transfer all their operations to? Something like they have been doing with Alitalia all these years?

BT started opetations at their new TMP base yesterday. I ask again, as No one replied earlier, how do their inaugural loads look? I hope they won't regret and then quit.

ilari wrote:

BT started opetations at their new TMP base yesterday. I ask again, as No one replied earlier, how do their inaugural loads look? I hope they won't regret and then quit.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got subsidies to operate out of TMP. The other day BT got their 34th A220 and without access to the Russian market they are struggling to employ all that capacity.

Well I do not know about that! It seems their fleet is stretched rather thin. My aunts flight to Riga was cancelled two weeks ago and rebooked the next day. Then yesterday again, SmartWings was operating the BT flight. What kind of issues are they having? Staffing or?

LH's new 2x daily MUC-BLL is off to a good start!

https://check-in.dk/succesfuld-start-med-udsolgte-fly/

The article hints at the Lufthansa Group looking at two more German destinations from West Denmark. Could it be Eurowings BLL-BER/DUS? Pure speculation, of course.

Mini1000 wrote:

LH's new 2x daily MUC-BLL is off to a good start!

https://check-in.dk/succesfuld-start-med-udsolgte-fly/

The article hints at the Lufthansa Group looking at two more German destinations from West Denmark. Could it be Eurowings BLL-BER/DUS? Pure speculation, of course.

Behind the paywall they mention VIE/BRU-BLL as the next in-line for LH Group.

minilinde wrote:

Mini1000 wrote:

LH's new 2x daily MUC-BLL is off to a good start!

https://check-in.dk/succesfuld-start-med-udsolgte-fly/

The article hints at the Lufthansa Group looking at two more German destinations from West Denmark. Could it be Eurowings BLL-BER/DUS? Pure speculation, of course.

Behind the paywall they mention VIE/BRU-BLL as the next in-line for LH Group.

Didn't SN operate BRU-BLL pre-Covid, with Q400?

Someone83 wrote:

minilinde wrote:

Mini1000 wrote:

LH's new 2x daily MUC-BLL is off to a good start!

https://check-in.dk/succesfuld-start-med-udsolgte-fly/

The article hints at the Lufthansa Group looking at two more German destinations from West Denmark. Could it be Eurowings BLL-BER/DUS? Pure speculation, of course.

Behind the paywall they mention VIE/BRU-BLL as the next in-line for LH Group.

Didn't SN operate BRU-BLL pre-Covid, with Q400?

They did, also with SSJ's and CRJ's, however i believe the route ended when the SN fleet became all-Airbus and not due to Covid.
I believe that it's most likely gonna be LH returning to AAL, most likely from FRA, and either EW (from DUS) or OS (from VIE) to BLL

Someone83 wrote:

Didn't SN operate BRU-BLL pre-Covid, with Q400?

I took that flight a few times before they axed it. It seemed to be mainly operated by CityJet CRJs. Once I had an Air Nostrum bird turning up at the gate. Even a SSJ.

It'd be great to see the new Brussels Airlines dots (back) in BLL, and OS would be the cherry on the cake. Not that the constant Ryanair and WIzzair parade isn't nice, but - you know

So who is LH mostly carrying here? Is there ethnic traffic heading to the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East? Business traffic? Tourism?

Mini1000 wrote:

LH's new 2x daily MUC-BLL is off to a good start!

https://check-in.dk/succesfuld-start-med-udsolgte-fly/

The article hints at the Lufthansa Group looking at two more German destinations from West Denmark. Could it be Eurowings BLL-BER/DUS? Pure speculation, of course.

Before the pandemic, LX had started flights to Zurich from Billund. These have now returned, but only 2x weekly and they run only until the end of September.
Let‘s hope LHG is able to further develop this connection as well, given that Denmark and the Nordics are popular tourism destinations from Switzerland.
In winter, there should also be some demand from Danes going skiing in the Swiss alps.

Blerg wrote:

So who is LH mostly carrying here? Is there ethnic traffic heading to the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East? Business traffic? Tourism?

BLL’s catchment area is basically everything west of Copenhagen (alright I exaggerate… but only a little). That includes all the other major cities including most of Aarhus and a significant chunk of Aalborg and Odense traffic.

So all of the above plus Danish tourists, transfers to long haul, etc. What KLM does with their 5x daily BLL-AMS flights, for short.

Mini1000 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

So who is LH mostly carrying here? Is there ethnic traffic heading to the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East? Business traffic? Tourism?

BLL’s catchment area is basically everything west of Copenhagen (alright I exaggerate… but only a little). That includes all the other major cities including most of Aarhus and a significant chunk of Aalborg and Odense traffic.

So all of the above plus Danish tourists, transfers to long haul, etc. What KLM does with their 5x daily BLL-AMS flights, for short.

Wow didn't know KLM had so many flights into BLL. Good for them.
I remember a few years ago I was going to Odense and the train prices were quite expensive from CPH. Is this the norm or was it an exception back then? Does it makes sense to fly into CPH and then take the train to Aarhus or Billund?

Blerg wrote:

Mini1000 wrote:

BLL’s catchment area is basically everything west of Copenhagen (alright I exaggerate… but only a little). That includes all the other major cities including most of Aarhus and a significant chunk of Aalborg and Odense traffic.

So all of the above plus Danish tourists, transfers to long haul, etc. What KLM does with their 5x daily BLL-AMS flights, for short.

Wow didn't know KLM had so many flights into BLL. Good for them.
I remember a few years ago I was going to Odense and the train prices were quite expensive from CPH. Is this the norm or was it an exception back then? Does it makes sense to fly into CPH and then take the train to Aarhus or Billund?

KLM does more than just 5x daily AMS-Billund, as it also operates 4x daily AMS-Aalborg.
That's 9x daily to mainland Denmark and 7x daily AMS-CPH.

Before COVID it was even more.

Flyr needs more cash and has raised 250 MNOK in a share issue

FLYR:

Someone83 wrote:

Flyr needs more cash and has raised 250 MNOK in a share issue

How many additional fundraisings have there been for Flyr ? I'm beginning to wonder how long they will survive...

FINLAND - NATO
Has there been any more news about what will happen aviation-wise if Finland applies to join NATO ? Are airports near the Russian border expecting any further surprises ? I'm thinking Kuusamo, Joensuu, Lappeenranta, Savonlinna, etc

FINLAND - DOMESTIC PSO
Separately, has there been any news as to what will happen to the domestic PSO routes in Finland after mid-August 2022, when the current PSO cash runs out ? Any idea when a decision will be made on this ? DAT are selling tickets for Kajaani-Helsinki until the end of October 2022, but with the healthiest of the pax numbers out of the 5 routes, this is unsurprising - the other 4 routes end in mid August 2022
Finavia have just published their April stats (i.e. when Covid restrictions had been largely relaxed) - the numbers listed are for domestic pax in April

PSO routes operated by Norra / Finnair until spring 2020
Kajaani - 2,707
Kemi - 2,281
Joensuu - 1,539
Kokkola - 1,254
Jyvaskyla - 417

Other PSO routes:
Pori - 798
Savonlinna - 247

Non-PSO routes:
Oulu - 51,329
Rovaniemi - 24,412
Kittila - 21,768
Ivalo - 9,776
Vaasa - 6,656
Kuopio - 6,590
Kuusamo - 5,503
Turku - 398
Tampere - 204

davidjohnson6 wrote:

FINLAND - NATO
Has there been any more news about what will happen aviation-wise if Finland applies to join NATO ? Are airports near the Russian border expecting any further surprises ? I'm thinking Kuusamo, Joensuu, Lappeenranta, Savonlinna, etc

No one is expecting any surprises, but everyone is anxiously aware that anything, and any surprises can happen. But the only one who should expect those is the Finnish army. Hopefully they expect enough.

Of course, there may be some communication between the army and the airports, that is not of public knowledge.

And BTW, personally the airport I feel is the most vulnerable for anything is MHQ, due to the demilitarization and close proximity to current KGD routes.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

FINLAND - DOMESTIC PSO
Separately, has there been any news as to what will happen to the domestic PSO routes in Finland after mid-August 2022, when the current PSO cash runs out ? Any idea when a decision will be made on this ? DAT are selling tickets for Kajaani-Helsinki until the end of October 2022, but with the healthiest of the pax numbers out of the 5 routes, this is unsurprising - the other 4 routes end in mid August 2022
Finavia have just published their April stats (i.e. when Covid restrictions had been largely relaxed) - the numbers listed are for domestic pax in April

PSO routes operated by Norra / Finnair until spring 2020
Kajaani - 2,707
Kemi - 2,281
Joensuu - 1,539
Kokkola - 1,254
Jyvaskyla - 417

Other PSO routes:
Pori - 798
Savonlinna - 247

Non-PSO routes:
Oulu - 51,329
Rovaniemi - 24,412
Kittila - 21,768
Ivalo - 9,776
Vaasa - 6,656
Kuopio - 6,590
Kuusamo - 5,503
Turku - 398
Tampere - 204

The latest news I could find were from the beginning of March. According to lentoposti.fi, the government has authorized 17 million euros to continue the subsidized traffic to these airports for an approximated 9 months.

The article says that the gvnmt has launched a new tender for these routes now (no details provided). But they also state that completing the tender will take around 9 months, which means that if there will be no unsubsidized traffic from mid-August, there can be a 2-3 months pause in flights before the new tenders would come into effect.

Personally, I feel that the precondition for any of these routes being commercially viable is that they're very closely tied up with the AY network (at least interline, preferrably codeshare or sub-operation (Norra).

Also, what are these pax numbers that you present based off of? Overall pax per airport or specifically flights to HEL, or something else? I'm especially curious about the "Non-PSO" routes (since I don't think that TKU/TMP had any commercial domestic ones in April yet).

The numbers I gave came from here - https://www.finavia.fi/en/about-finavia ... stics-year
They are the number of domestic pax in April 2022. While not the same as HEL-centric statistics, I imagine the number of domestic pax that didn't involve Helsinki airport is probably quite small.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

The numbers I gave came from here - https://www.finavia.fi/en/about-finavia ... stics-year
They are the number of domestic pax in April 2022. While not the same as HEL-centric statistics, I imagine the number of domestic pax that didn't involve Helsinki airport is probably quite small.

That's exactly the reason why I found them rather peculiar - TKU & TMP shouldn't have had any domestic connections in April. However - I now came to think of sports charters, especially the hockey league. The passenger numbers from those flights probably count, even if they entailed only the same team traveling to visitor matches repeatedly!

Loganair is postponing the start of ABZ-OSL from sometimes in June to September 5th

UA will not resume EWR-ARN before April 2023.

Source: https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-ro ... june-2022/

I realise that in May, it is a long time until winter. I notice that winter seasonal flights from Scandinavia to the Alps are on sale, but there seems to be nothing on sale yet to/from Salen-Trysil. Last winter the airport opened effectively 2 days per week (Thurs + Sun I think)... I'm wondering when relevant people will decide what should happen in winter 2022-23

davidjohnson6 wrote:

I'm wondering when relevant people will decide what should happen in winter 2022-23

I think something will happen before end June, before the summer holidays. I expect SK to operate CPH and AAL on similar levels as this year.

SAS planned to launch a 2x weekly winter seasonal route Lulea-London Heathrow in winter 2020-21. Flights were cancelled, and SAS tried again in winter 2021-22. Again, flights were cancelled.

It seems SAS have decided to have another attempt at the route. First flight is 09-Dec-2022, operated on Mondays and Fridays. I'm impressed that SAS are being so persistent with this route

Emirates plan to increase (or return) from daily to 11x weekly on ARN.DXB from Feb 1 2023

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SAS planned to launch a 2x weekly winter seasonal route Lulea-London Heathrow in winter 2020-21. Flights were cancelled, and SAS tried again in winter 2021-22. Again, flights were cancelled.

It seems SAS have decided to have another attempt at the route. First flight is 09-Dec-2022, operated on Mondays and Fridays. I'm impressed that SAS are being so persistent with this route

The route is in cooperation with both the local swedish tourism board and some UK tour operators. They take up quite a few seats onboard

April passenger numbers, showing % of 2019 level and in absolute numbers:

KEF: 82,2% 390.041
OSL: 82,1% 1.848.386
CPH: 72,6% 1.808.611
ARN: 72,2% 1.479.001
HEL: 53,5% 962.073

I suppose HEL will keep on underperforming as long as access to Asia remains restricted. That could take a while though.

SASViking wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SAS planned to launch a 2x weekly winter seasonal route Lulea-London Heathrow in winter 2020-21. Flights were cancelled, and SAS tried again in winter 2021-22. Again, flights were cancelled.

It seems SAS have decided to have another attempt at the route. First flight is 09-Dec-2022, operated on Mondays and Fridays. I'm impressed that SAS are being so persistent with this route

The route is in cooperation with both the local swedish tourism board and some UK tour operators. They take up quite a few seats onboard

Does SAS really have any slot available at LHR?

Asiaflyer wrote:

SASViking wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SAS planned to launch a 2x weekly winter seasonal route Lulea-London Heathrow in winter 2020-21. Flights were cancelled, and SAS tried again in winter 2021-22. Again, flights were cancelled.

It seems SAS have decided to have another attempt at the route. First flight is 09-Dec-2022, operated on Mondays and Fridays. I'm impressed that SAS are being so persistent with this route

The route is in cooperation with both the local swedish tourism board and some UK tour operators. They take up quite a few seats onboard

Does SAS really have any slot available at LHR?

SAS hold 218 slots at LHR, i.e. 109 return flights.

I fly SAS ARN-LHR about two to four times a month and rarely are the flights full. I would have thought it smart to think about cutting back from 5 or 6 daily trips against BA (and Norwegian to Gatwick) to introduce some new direct flights. UME, SKF, LLA, GOT... all thriving cities with people who would pay a premium to fly direct to Lonndon for a long weekend.

Ryanair flew between London Stansted and Skelleftea from March 2014 to October 2015. Many of the pax were residents of northern Sweden going for a long weekend or a week to London.
The route was not a success

It may be of interest that a UK travel agent, Discover the World, used to charter SAS flights on peak leisure dates to fly between Heathrow and Kiruna in winter for visitors to the Ice Hotel and the region. Those flights last operated in winter 2019-2020. They will not operate in winter 2022-23, but might return in winter 2023-24
https://www.discover-the-world.com/dest ... -icehotel/

Asiaflyer wrote:

SASViking wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

SAS planned to launch a 2x weekly winter seasonal route Lulea-London Heathrow in winter 2020-21. Flights were cancelled, and SAS tried again in winter 2021-22. Again, flights were cancelled.

It seems SAS have decided to have another attempt at the route. First flight is 09-Dec-2022, operated on Mondays and Fridays. I'm impressed that SAS are being so persistent with this route

The route is in cooperation with both the local swedish tourism board and some UK tour operators. They take up quite a few seats onboard

Does SAS really have any slot available at LHR?

They use 2x weekly slots from other routes, most likely ARN

jamesontheroad wrote:

I fly SAS ARN-LHR about two to four times a month and rarely are the flights full. I would have thought it smart to think about cutting back from 5 or 6 daily trips against BA (and Norwegian to Gatwick) to introduce some new direct flights. UME, SKF, LLA, GOT... all thriving cities with people who would pay a premium to fly direct to Lonndon for a long weekend.

They used to have up to 2x daily GOT-LHR, but those flight got axed a few years ago

FR pretty much killed SK on the LON-GOT route. BA dropped the route after 9/11… even after they couldn’t make it work from LGW.
When theyreintroduced LHR -GOT, the writing was on the wall for SK.
God knows why they couldn’t make it work.
Have flown SK , LHR-GOT on hundred of flights, and never once have I not gotten a seat.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair flew between London Stansted and Skelleftea from March 2014 to October 2015. Many of the pax were residents of northern Sweden going for a long weekend or a week to London.
The route was not a success

The market is completely different today. The year after FR quit, Northvolt was founded. There are now upwards of 3,000 people working on the new Northvolt battery plant outside Skellefteå, and the municipality is gearing up for 7,000 new jobs.

jamesontheroad wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair flew between London Stansted and Skelleftea from March 2014 to October 2015. Many of the pax were residents of northern Sweden going for a long weekend or a week to London.
The route was not a success

The market is completely different today. The year after FR quit, Northvolt was founded. There are now upwards of 3,000 people working on the new Northvolt battery plant outside Skellefteå, and the municipality is gearing up for 7,000 new jobs.

Indeed Skellefteå is something of a boom town now with a large international community.

Interview with new SAS CEO Anko van der Werff.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/29/br ... president/

Found his comments interesting about looking to grow and become more relevant in smaller Scandinavian regional markets the region lacks any megacities with big catchment areas that airlines can rely on as some of its European peers.

Mentions they have too many widebodies and an Asia problem, so looking to pivot more across the Atlantic and work out the appropriate fleet mix.

Also with resurgance of leisure travel over corporate traffic, SAS needs to go with the flow of market development and follow the leisure demand.

mercure1 wrote:

Also with resurgance of leisure travel over corporate traffic, SAS needs to go with the flow of market development and follow the leisure demand.

While that may be correct, they cannot afford to loose focus on corporate traffic as well. As of now Norwegian is gaining market share in this market, as they reported in their Q1 numbers

Terminal 4 at ARN will reopen on June 15th, and with it an airside corridor to Terminal 5 allowing easier transfers between international and domestic flights.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsa ... d-terminal (In Swedish)

Bostrom wrote:

Terminal 4 at ARN will reopen on June 15th, and with it an airside corridor to Terminal 5 allowing easier transfers between international and domestic flights.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsa ... d-terminal (In Swedish)

Except T4 won’t be a domestic terminal as it was pre-pandemic. T4 will be mostly a LCC terminal with Ryanair and others, where as SAS will continue to only use T5.

mercure1 wrote:

Interview with new SAS CEO Anko van der Werff.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/29/br ... president/

Found his comments interesting about looking to grow and become more relevant in smaller Scandinavian regional markets the region lacks any megacities with big catchment areas that airlines can rely on as some of its European peers.

Mentions they have too many widebodies and an Asia problem, so looking to pivot more across the Atlantic and work out the appropriate fleet mix.

Also with resurgance of leisure travel over corporate traffic, SAS needs to go with the flow of market development and follow the leisure demand.

As a SAS shareholder i must say we have many discussions about the fleet size and many means it is to small. And that SAS has to few long haul routes

Flyr has announced they have been selected by the Norwegian government as the preferred carrier, when they book tickets, on 19 routes. Not mention which be I assume it applies to most or all of their domestic network, plus some of their international as well

In addition they have confirmed they will take another 4 MAX8 on lease, with deliveries May-July 2023

As discussed in the dedicated Play KEF-MCO thread, they have cancelled their launch for Orlando in W22/23. According to their press release this is mainly due to them backing out of the lease deal for their first A321neoLR and instead bringing in another A320neo.

LN-TUL is leaving the SAS fleet today

From Skyliner

Boeing 737 -705 29097 1072 LN-TUL SAS ferried 30may22 OSL-BGR on return to lessor

It seems that Delta have extended their seasonal JFK-ARN route to year round. Originally this route was planned to operate from June to October but now it is available also in November and onwards.