The airline SAS has made misjudgments in connection with the corona pandemic regarding when passenger traffic will increase again, something that will be noticeable on the bottom line, according to comments that the Danish newspaper Børsen has obtained from analysts.

On Thursday morning, SAS's year-end report will be published and there is a risk that some scary figures will appear in it, says Hans Jørgen Elnæs, aviation analyst at Winair.

According to the analyst, this is due to misjudgments made by SAS during the pandemic.

”"SAS has taken a chance and increased its capacity by about 20 percent, which was not a success. The only thing SAS has gained from the investment has been increased costs that do not yield anything other than a marginal increase in revenue and passengers," says Hans Jørgen Elnæs.

The airline has more flights in the air than competitors such as Lufthansa, Air France and British Airways, according to a report by Finans, writes Børsen.

Last week, SAS also announced that the company will resume a number of routes to meet the demand for air traffic in connection with Christmas, which is also a weak idea according to Hans Jørgen Elnæs, who points out that we are hardly heading towards a normal Christmas and that most airlines have simultaneously chosen to reduce capacity.

However, the analysis is in good agreement with figures and forecasts from the flight analysis service Eurocontrol, which according to Børsen indicates traffic levels around 54-58 percent lower than under normal conditions.

According to Jacob Pedersen, an analyst at Sydbank, SAS's operating loss for the year is predicted to come in at 8.6 billion Swedish kronor, while Hans Jørgen Elnæs expects up to minus 9.5 billion kronor.

Source: Nyhetsbyrån Direkt