mkgrip

They can get tax free, and therefore cheap booze, and therefore get drunk, and that's a health problem?

But anyway, I think it's more about population base and work costs than about anything else why they don't go OSL. Norwegians might fly more domestically, but I'm not so sure about international, or inbound passengers. There is a probably reason why other airlines tend to serve ARN and CPH better.

Norwegian might have been fairly succesful and from Norway, but OSL is definately not their only hub. Is it even main hub anymore, I guess you can still say so.
For all practical purposes Norwegian is going towards the direction. Main hub in one scandinavian capital, but really hubs of some sort in all Scandinavian capitals, and minor hub in Helsinki (Blue1 is for all practical purposes SAS Finland) to piss AY off :P.

WilcoRoger

Hmm, why does it always boil down to booze in Scandinavia?

miikkak

Location. Some destinations would require backtracking...

WilcoRoger

The original poster said that Norway's not being EU would mean a problem to transiting EU pax - which I could not find any. (no talk of location)

seacarl

The best hubs have a combination of O/D and flow traffic. Perhaps CPH's role as a hub has ended. It has limited O/D traffic, and the LCCs have siphoned too much.

Since ARN has a bigger population base, and Norway has the oil business, one of those should become the primary hub for SAS

nordictat2

I agree!
I also find it ANNOYING when I have to sometimes fly to CPH first to get to GOT or ARN. Never understood it...
It just makes more sense to have it in Norway. Have the main hub where the money is being made.
Regardless...I am just glad they aren't going out of business (yet) and my eb points are safe (for now)!

travelkid

All trade unions have signed, so SK seems safe for a year or two.

Main problem is diversified and old plane base with huge maintenance and fuel costs.

SK2751

From a perspective of someone who commutes to CPH regularly using metro and train, I can't say that there is no O/D traffic in Copenhagen. There is plenty of local traffic from CPH. Of course, I have no idea how big it is in comparison. It would be interesting to see some numbers. I still think that moving the hub out of CPH would be cutting of at least a third, if not half of population of Scandinavia out of SK. I would never fly to OSL to change planes and fly south again. Most of the european traffic is bound South and West. This would also seriously add to the fuel cost for SK, which is already high.

I would have no problem, for the most cases, to take a connecting flight for a long haul flight though.

On the other hand most seriou european airlines have two or three hubs. It just happens though that SK is slightly smaller, probably the smallest of all larger airlines in Europe. This size might be indeed inconveninent for a multiple hub arrangement. I can see LO, which is smaller, even if growing on top of a larger population, loosing a lot of traffic because of a single hub arrengement. It is very easy for SK, or LH to open a direct connection to MUC or CPH and suck in a lot of traffic from any of the smaller airport, simply because transferring in WAW is so less attractive (an much less connections are available).

HeathrowGuy

I beg to differ. The main problem is SAS trying to run 2.5 discrete hubs in a market that can profitably sustain no more than 1-1.5 under the most efficient usage of crews and equipment (and SK does well on neither front). I'm glad SK is not going into bankruptcy, but the rescue package kicks the can further down the road -- SK is simply NOT viable in its current structure, and an honest effort to guarantee sustainability in Scandinavian air services would entail a managed breakup and reorientation of SAS and its assets.

HeathrowGuy

Ideally, a real restructuring of Scandinvaian aviation (this is bigger than just the fate of SAS, really) would entail a total SAS pulldown in Oslo (with a small number of SAS planes sent over to Norwegian, if needed by them), with redeployment of most SAS OSL-focused equipment into a larger, more formidable CPH hub to build sorely needed traffic volumes, and perhaps an O&D focus city in ARN. Or, SAS keeps and builds OSL, maintains CPH, dumps ARN altogether, and the Swedes enter into some sort of arrangement with Finnair to develop a focus city in ARN. Any plan that attempts to keep a sizeable presence in all three cities is an unworkable fraud upon the creditors and taxpayers, IMHO.

ksu

Whose ideal? Your suggestion for OSL is illogical. The Norwegian government has a clear preference for having competition om domestic routes. Remember: OSL is a major SK hub for domestic traffic in Norway. This function cannot be transferred to ARN or CPH. Basically. if I want to go anywhere in Norway from KSU except BGO/TRD, I have to transfer at OSL for WF destinations in Sogn og Fjordane, HAU, KRS and Northern Norway. This is the case for most other airports in Norway. Even from BGO it is often more convenient to transfer at OSL for going to Northern Norway, due to the reduced number of flights between secondary airports.

The need to have a huge domestic presence in OSL for SAS makes a good case for an international hub there, and certainly for a wide selection of destinations non-stop from OSL, not to lose passengers who don't want a double connection journey to the competitors.

Who really wants a huge CPH hub? I cannot see that a huge CPH in itself has any intrinsic value, except for the Danes.

SK2751

The population of DK is 10% bigger than that of NO. And this is not counting Skaane (1.2 mio), which is also using CPH intensively. Let's face it: it is really hard to argue for SK to organize it differently. Whatever they do, besides maintaining status quo, quite a lot of people would sufferbe unhappy. Perhpas one needs some innovative thinking how to run a three hub airline in a large region. Really the problem is that the population of Scandinavia is small, wherease it is stretched over a huge space. Other airlines in Europe hardly have this problem. Experience from Germany, France, or worse Holland, does not really transfer to a region like Scandinavia.

bjerregaard

I could also ask, who really wants an OSL hub?

It would be plain stupied to move the hub to OSL or ARN, if the traveller is going south.

That said, I have no problem to change in another airport if I am flying longhaul or even if it is on the route to somewhere in Europe.
In fact I have done the CPH-ARN-EWR/rt run several times.

BTW if I am not wrong, SAS has, in the last years, opened a lot of direct routes to Europe from OSL, even more than from CPH?

hbush

I would most certainly prefer CPH as flight connection place over OSL. Have been countless times in CPH but also sometimes in OSL for flight connections. Let's remember, that Oslo is also very expensive place (even on Scandinavian background) if you need to stay overnight in the town. Hilton at CPH is less expensive than Radisson at OSL. Scandinavian Lounge in CPH is much better. More shops available in CPH airside with better prices than in OSL. There are also much wider choices of different airlines serving CPH, to combine flight connections. And so on.

jfidler

Looking at statistics on airlines in Europe, it seems to me that SK is just not big enough to sustain 2-3 hubs. They probably need to get rid of at least one to survive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ines_in_Europe