Originally Posted by RedChili

My impression was that the timing of the LAX flight was because they had two airplanes doing a ARN-LAX-ARN-EWR-ARN turnaround. Since the LAX plane was going to be used on next day's EWR flight, it had to depart very early in the morning. Such an ambitious turnaround basically takes 48 hours and there's no wiggle room.

Concerning HKG, I don't think that SAS ever tried getting better slots there because they could not have used it for the ARN flights anyway. They had two airplanes doing a ARN-HKG-ARN-ORD-ARN turnaround, and SAS was extremely limited for choice. A more desirable timing for the HKG flights would be ARN-HKG 00:30-16:50, HKG-ARN 23:30-04:45. But that would mean that ORD would get a crazy timetable of ARN-ORD-06:00-08:00, ORD-ARN 08:30-23:50. Not only would 30 minute turnarounds be impossible to accomplish, but a day-time flight from ORD would be even worse than a day-time flight from HKG.

With only two airplanes, they could only have two overnight flights, and it's obvious that ORD-ARN and ARN-HKG were more desirable than HKG-ARN and ARN-ORD. So, during the years that SAS had ARN-HKG, I don't think that they ever applied for good slots because they couldn't have used it. SAS would have needed five airplanes at ARN to get a better schedule. But five planes for four routes is way too expensive. That's why I wrote above that they would've needed more destinations. Ten planes for nine routes would work.