Are SAS Airlines close to bankruptcy?

Stinicker

Just a heads up for travellers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Scandanavia's Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and will probably go bust in a few days like Spanair and Malev did already this year. If booking with them make sure you book by Credit Card to ensure some degree of protection if they do stop flying. They recently cut their routes to Bangkok which they had been flying for nearly 50 years and the outlook for the airline isn't great.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5597431/

In Swedish but translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.expressen.se%2Fekonomi%2Fuppgifter-i-natt-sas-hotas-av-konkurs%2F

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-10-24/news/34708170_1_sas-ryanair-berlingske

munchkin_utd

good riddance.
Their prices are just makey uppy, and if they cant turn a profit with their crazy prices then they don't deserve to survive.

For example one of the quietest months for flying is early December so you'd expect to be able to travel reasonably cheaply.
The cheapest direct flight from Munich to Stockholm which has 4 flights each way daily that I can find that month is 360 odd euro return if you dont mind what dates or time you fly at.
If you want to nip off for a weekend from a Friday to Sunday evening its €430 return
If you want to go on a Monday morning and work till Wednesday evening its €536 return in basic economy

If they go bust it'll be no loss and whoever replaces them on the existing routes will no doubt have better service at much lower prices.

Yamanoto

munchkin_utd wrote: »

If they go bust it'll be no loss and whoever replaces them on the existing routes will no doubt have better service at much lower prices.

Any flights I've taken with SAS have been uniformly excellent. I doubt pricing on your particular route is determined by some arbitrary whim - it'll utilise a fairly byzantine system of dynamic pricing to maximise yield and avoid flying with no bums on seats.

Dublin to Stockholm weekends in December can be had for less than €170 return with the same airline - different market, different fare.

fichillie

Crap, I was going to book cheap flights with them for February to Denmark.....now I dont know what to do

Stinicker

Once you book it with a Credit Card and not a Visa Debit card then you should have greater protection. From reading up on it again it looks like even if they go bankrupt that they will probably continue flying and just start culling certain loss making routes, layoff staff and get rid of some of their older gas guzzling MD-82 aircraft. Basically they may get time to get their house in order.

American Airlines are bankrupt also but are in Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection. So it might be a "Soft" re-organisation bankruptcy rather than a liquidation as we saw when both Malev and Spanair went under. Alot of analysts are predicting union upheavals as SAS may disappear to reemerge as SAS 2.0 like what happened with Sabena and the newly formed Brussels Airlines which rose from its ashes.

I'd say book the flight if it is a good deal because SAS are usually a total rip-off as outlined earlier, just make sure to book with a Credit Card for protection, this thread here was what happened when Malev was liquidated.

Tabnabs

Probably worth changing the thread title as it's purely speculative. SAS is the flagship carrier for three of the richest nations (per capita) around. SAS has only made a profit in two of the last ten years. No doubt massive restructuring and asset stripping is on the way, but Malev they are not.

I always use Norwegian.no instead of SAS based on price, but you can't fault their service, they are an old school airline.

BTW, SAS share trading resumed at 11:30 on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, rising 14 percent.

LiamMc

Tabnabs wrote: »

Probably worth changing the thread title as it's purely speculative. SAS is the flagship carrier for three of the richest nations (per capita) around. SAS has only made a profit in two of the last ten years. No doubt massive restructuring and asset stripping is on the way, but Malev they are not.

I always use Norwegian.no instead of SAS based on price, but you can't fault their service, they are an old school airline.

BTW, SAS share trading resumed at 11:30 on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, rising 14 percent.

I'm not sure stockbrokers with Star Alliance and SAS's own EuroBonus loyalty scheme should really count as an indicator.

But I do wish SAS airlines and associated companies incld. hotel chain all the best. I used SAS most recently in 2010.
It always made sense to me that an airline delivering passengers to a destination would also have the vertical ownership of operating a few hotels at the destination. Car Hire, Event Management and Fun Parks would also be on the list.

Zebra3

Have asked friends in Scandanavia about the situation and they said there'll be a lot of restructuring, but it certainly isn't going bankrupt.

I have 500€ worth of vouchers for them so I've a vested interest in following this up.

Panic over it seems.

And if I hear anything further, I'll post it here.

kerry4sam

Thread title re-named due to the info provided in this thread.

@Stinicker: pm me if you're not happy with this update.

Thanks,
kerry4sam

Stinicker

kerry4sam wrote: »

Thread title re-named due to the info provided in this thread.

@Stinicker: pm me if you're not happy with this update.

Thanks,
kerry4sam

No problems from me,