SAS traffic figures - August 2016

• Scheduled traffic (RPK) increased 12% and the capacity (ASK) was up 11%.
• The scheduled load factor improved by 0.7 p.u. versus last year to 81.2%.
• SAS carried 2.5 million scheduled passengers in August, up 4% vs. last year.
• The preliminary currency adjusted yield and PASK were down 7% and 6% in August 2016. The nominal yield and PASK were down 8% and 7% in August 2016.

Market development
The demand for long haul traffic, European leisure routes and domestic routes continues to grow. At the same time, the overall Scandinavian market capacity has increased resulting in intensive competition. The intensive competition combined with lower jet fuel prices have put pressure on the yield that has declined more than anticipated in 2016.

 SAS is increasing its intercontinental capacity by about 25% during fiscal year 2015/2016 through new routes and frequencies. Overall, this has resulted in a longer average stage length with subsequent effect on the yield/PASK and will contribute to an expected scheduled capacity growth of 10% during 2015/2016. The total number of flights is at the same time expected to increase by about 1%.

In 2016/2017, SAS plans to increase capacity (ASK), primarily as a result of the full-year effect of the investment in the intercontinental routes that was started in 2015/2016, increased capacity on leisure

routes and the fact that the Airbus A320neo is larger than the aircraft it will be replacing. The total increase will be lower than in 2015/2016.

SAS scheduled traffic development in August  SAS increased its scheduled capacity in August by 11% and the traffic grew 12%. The overall load factor increased by 0.7 p.u. to 81.2% during the month. The higher load factor was driven by improvements within SAS long haul and domestic networks.

SAS intercontinental traffic increased 26.7% and the capacity was up 25.6%. The growth was driven by the new routes to Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Boston as well as more frequencies to Shanghai and New York.

SAS Europe/Intrascandinavian routes grew by 3.2%. The growth was strong on leisure oriented routes where traffic grew by more than 10%. On domestic routes, the capacity was increased by 0.3% and the traffic was up by 5.1% following positive developments in all three Scandinavian domestic markets.