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SAS Group returned to profit in the second quarter after passenger traffic rose and the carrier cut costs.

“‘There are positive prospects for continued traffic growth during the second half of 2011, particularly on U.S. routes, but also on domestic and intra-Scandinavian routes,’” Chief Executive Officer Rickard Gustafson said in the statement.

SAS, part-owned by the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, had been unprofitable in all but two of the previous 14 quarters as it struggled with a drop in travel and competition from discount carriers such as Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA. SAS in May forecast a full-year 2011 pretax profit, and the carrier reaffirmed that prediction today.

source: bloomberg.com

German airline Lufthansa may announce takeover plans for SAS as early as the first half of 2011. Cologne-based Lufthansa is in talks with the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, which own half of the unprofitable Stockholm-based carrier.

The potential acquisition would strengthen Lufthansa’s central-European dominance. It would also offer shorter polar flights from Scandinavia to Canada and northern United States.

source: swedishwire.com

Norwegian air shuttle said on Tuesday that a court ruled that Scandinavian airline SAS should pay it 132 million Norwegian crowns ($26.33 million) in compensation in an industrial espionage case.

It also ruled that SAS should pay Norwegian Air’s legal costs of about 6.8 million crowns, said Norwegian – a low-cost rival to SAS.

source: Reuters

Scandinavian airline group SAS AB on Tuesday posted a first-quarter net loss of 1.08 billion kronor (euro115 million; US$181 million ), citing higher fuel costs and growing competition, and said it would slash 1,000 jobs to reduce costs.

The result was down from a net loss of 18 million kronor in the first quarter of last year.

Sales in the first three months of 2008 rose to 12.83 billion kronor (euro1.37 billion; US$2.15 billion), from 11.89 billion kronor in the same period last year, SAS said.

“The negative earnings trend we experienced in November and December last year continued in the first quarter of 2008,” Chief Executive Mats Jansson said.

source: Forbes

Shares in Scandinavian airline SAS dived on Wednesday after it posted a fourth-quarter loss on problems with its Dash 8 Q400 planes and said it faced delays in turnaround plans and a worsening economic situation.

The airline, half of which is owned by Sweden, Norway and Denmark, added that replacing its fleet of Dash 8 Q400’s, permanently grounded after landing gear issues caused three emergency landings last autumn, would add to costs in 2008.

SAS shares were down 10.6 percent at 55 crowns by 1302 GMT, having hit 53.50 crowns — its lowest for more than three years.

source: Guardian Unlimited

Scandinavian airline SAS will put off a decision about the future of three of its business units until late January because of the threat of a strike by unions, daily Dagens Industri wrote on Sunday.

SAS said earlier this year it would review the future of its Ground Services, Technical Services and part of its cargo unit as it looks to focus on core activities to boost profit.

source: Reuters

Scandinavian airline SAS said on Sunday it had cancelled 57 flights because its fleet of Q400 turboprops was grounded following the crash-landing of one of the aircraft in Copenhagen.

The landing gear of an SAS Q400 collapsed on landing at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport on Saturday, but no one was seriously injured.

SAS said in a statement it had cancelled 49 flights on Sunday and eight flights on Monday.

Scandinavian aviation authorities on Saturday issued a new flight ban on all SAS’s Q400 turboprops shortly after the incident.

source: Yahoo!

The airline group’s board of directors said in a statement that it had decided ‘to immediately discontinue the use of this type of aircraft’.

The Dash 8 Q400 has given rise to ”repeated quality-related problems,” said SAS deputy chief executive officer John Dueholm.

”SAS’s flight operations have always enjoyed an excellent reputation and there is a risk that use of the Dash 8 Q400 could eventually damage the SAS brand,” Dueholm said.

The SAS statement acknowledged that Sunday’s decision would result in flight cancellations and said the airline would try to compensate by reallocating current aircraft in the group’s fleet and leasing from other airlines.

source: finanznachrichten.de

Airline SAS said on Monday it was cancelling at least 228 flights through to Wednesday this week because of the grounding of all its Dash 8-400 aircraft following two crash-landings last week.

In separate statements, SAS Sweden and SAS Denmark said they would cancel 48 flights and 180 flights, respectively.

Two SAS planes crash-landed within days, one in Denmark on Sept. 9 and another in Lithuania on Sept. 12, due to problems with landing gear. No one was seriously hurt in either incident.

source: Reuters

Scandinavian airline SAS said on Friday it had buried the hatchet with its Danish unions and that four organisations had pledged to work for a “‘no-strike situation'” after 2007 wage negotiations.

The carrier, hard hit by fierce competition from low-cost carriers and higher fuel costs in recent years, has had hundreds of flights grounded this year at a cost of millions of dollars due to strikes at its Danish and Swedish units.

SAS Chief Executive Mats Jansson said the airline should be able avoid new strikes through initiatives including profit-sharing programmes and share-ownership programmes.

source: Reuters