SAS traffic figures - March 2018

Market and SAS development

The capacity in the Scandinavian market has accelerated during the autumn and winter 2017/2018 in line with SAS’s expectations. This trend is also expected to continue during the spring 2018.

Due to the different timing of Easter compared to last year, SAS adjusted its network to accommodate the customers’ changing demand. This was well received and resulted in higher traffic volumes on international routes and generally higher load factors.

In fiscal year 2017/2018, SAS plans to increase capacity (ASK) by around 1–3%, driven by longer European routes and the fact that the Airbus A320neo has more seats than the aircraft being replaced.

SAS scheduled traffic development in March  

In line with SAS’s increased seasonal adjustment during the winter program 2017/2018, SAS reduced the capacity in March by 0.3%. Despite this, the traffic increased by 4.5%, which resulted in an increased passenger load factor of 3.4 p.u. versus last year to 73.1%.

SAS’s intercontinental capacity decreased by 1.9% as one aircraft has been phased out of traffic. The traffic grew during March by 5.4%. The growth was strongest on the USA routes, where the traffic grew by more than 6%.

The traffic on SAS’s European/Intrascandinavian routes increased by 8.0%. At the same time the capacity increased by 4.8%. In response to the adjustments of the network around Easter, the number of passengers increased by more than 20% versus last year on the European leisure oriented routes.

On SAS’s domestic routes, the capacity was reduced by 9.7%, as capacity was allocated to European routes during Easter. As a result, the traffic decreased on the domestic routes by 5.7%.