(TAN): The ongoing pandemic continues to severely impact Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and reported traffic figures for October are broadly in line with September this year.
During the month, SAS carried just over 0.6 million passengers, down 78.7% compared to last year. Similarly, SAS reduced its capacity by 73.3% year-over-year. Compared to the previous month, demand, capacity and load factor remained broadly unchanged.
Revenue passenger kilometres for October was 457 million, an 86.3% decrease year-on-year. Available seat kilometres also decreased 72.3% from the same period of 2019, standing at 1,224 million.
“Reported traffic is close to what we experienced in September and demand continues to be stronger for domestic than for European and Intercontinental travel, which is also reflected in the network and schedule we offer. Regretfully, the accelerated number of Covid-19 cases in October have led to reinforced restrictions across Europe, which naturally impacts the willingness to travel negatively,” said Rickard Gustafson, CEO, SAS.
“Even though we expect the low demand environment to be maintained for the next few months, our view remains firm that the ramp-up phase for the airline industry will continue until 2022 with demand returning to levels before the pandemic a few years thereafter,” he added.
