SAS continues to resume its corona-closed routes, announcing ten Italian destinations on Tuesday.
SAS is resuming its entire offering of ten destinations in Italy, in line with its program to resume routes, according to a press release on Tuesday.
The state airline thus flies to approximately 50 destinations from Stockholm and seven from Gothenburg, according to a list in the press release.
In total, SAS currently flies on 170-180 routes and nearly 100 destinations in the network, according to Sweden's press manager Freja Annamatz. The program to resume routes was announced in February, when it was mentioned that 180 lines would be reopened by the summer.
”"In terms of destinations, we are starting to catch up with what we were flying before the pandemic, apart from intercontinental departures," explains SAS Sweden's press manager Freja Annamatz to Di, adding that the number of departures, however, remains significantly lower.
Tuesday's announcement can be seen in the light of significantly lower flight capacity in recent months compared to before the pandemic hit. Measured in available seat kilometers, capacity was just over a quarter in May of this year compared to two years ago, albeit six times as large as a year ago.
What does the plan look like to return to previous capacity levels?
”"It is related to the demand for travel, which in turn is completely linked to the travel restrictions where we are now seeing relief gradually as countries open up. What we have said is that during this year there will be an escalation in demand, and that we will gradually approach a normal situation. But that recovery may last until 2022, and sometime in 2022 we believe demand will normalize towards similar levels from before the pandemic," says Freja Annamatz.
In connection with its latest quarterly report, which came out in May, SAS communicated an assumption that travel from mid-July this year will be about half of a normal summer. The airline plans to adapt its capacity to that assumption, explains Freja Annamatz, adding that it depends on announced EU plans on how countries open up, how vaccination progresses and so on.
The forecast can be compared to SAS's traffic (measured in RPK, or revenue-per-mile) in July last year being just one-sixth of a year earlier. It was still a significant boost compared to April and May, when flying accounted for just 2-3 percent of 2019 traffic.
Do you book every other seat, like SJ does on the train, or are the planes allowed to be full?
”In the flight, we follow recommendations from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). As a traveler, you choose a seat, but there are no rules about empty seats. Since May 2020, we have had a requirement for face masks and have taken other measures to ensure that people can keep their distance and reduce the spread of infection in this way,” says Freja Annamatz. She mentions that aircraft air is replaced quickly and that the plane has highly efficient filters, which is why the spread of infection on board aircraft is unusual.
SAS cabin factor, as occupancy is called in aviation parlance, was down to 36 percent in May, almost half of what it was two years earlier. During the summer, SAS usually reaches around 80 percent cabin factor.
Source: di.se
