SAS may cancel more departures this summer, in addition to the 4,000 the airline has already announced.
At the same time, the company announces that the plan is being filled increasingly well.
The passengers have returned to the flight. For SAS, it is about a 350 percent increase in May to over 1.8 million passengers, compared to the same month last year.
Compared to April, this is an increase of 18 percent, according to a press release from the airline.
The aircraft are also being filled significantly better. The so-called cabin factor has risen by 35 percentage points to 71 percent in one year. Even compared to April, SAS is filling its planes to a greater extent.
”"The trend for our general ticket sales is positive for the upcoming summer period, but the entire aviation industry is facing challenges. To minimize operational problems ahead of the summer, SAS has therefore made proactive adjustments to the traffic program," writes SAS CEO Anko van der Werff in a comment.
But the question is how patient passengers will be with these ”proactive adjustments”, which are a direct result of the drastic cuts in the pandemic that must now be quickly reversed. SAS has already canceled 4,000 flights this summer, around five percent of all departures, primarily as a result of staff shortages but also delayed aircraft deliveries, according to what the airline itself states. Now Norwegian TV2 is reporting that there may be further cancellations.
The TV channel has spoken to SAS's Norwegian press manager Tonje Bjerve Sund, who says that it may be necessary to cancel additional flights.
SAS is not alone, however. Other airlines such as British Airways have also canceled tens of thousands of departures this summer, which has meant that passengers have been forced to rebook.
On top of this, many airports, mainly Arlanda in Sweden, along with several larger European airports, have problems with long waiting times at security checkpoints, which leads to queues and the risk of missed departures.
