SAS has noticed a certain surge in passengers and increased interest after virtually the entire world introduced a flight ban for the accident-stricken Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.
This is what the company's Norwegian head of information, Knut Morten Johansen, tells E24.
”"I can confirm that there is greater interest among the traveling public. We are getting questions about which aircraft we use and there has been greater interest in flying with us," he tells the newspaper.
SAS has Boeing planes in its fleet, but no 737 Max 8s.
”It is difficult to say whether the increased interest in flying with us is solely due to the Max problems or whether there may be other explanations.”
It is worse for competitor Norwegian, which until the flight stoppage had 18 Boeing 737 Max planes in service, and has orders for far more. Norwegian is also the airline in the world that has lost the most in market value after the accident in Ethiopia on Sunday that claimed 157 lives, writes Dagens Næringsliv.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to raise prices is not an option for SAS.
”"We are not taking advantage of a tragic event that has affected the aviation industry, so we are maintaining our pricing policy as normal. We are not doing anything active that changes our normal pricing policy," Knut Morten Johansen tells E24.
This means in plain language that SAS's booking system gradually increases prices as a flight begins to become fully booked, but this also happens normally.
Source: TT
