view

I think some of you are missing part of the point of what this means to SAS. Yes it may not be a viable alternative for most business travellers, but SAS as a legacy carrier and from their main hub of CPH are also dependant on filling the back of the plane with "cheap" seats for leisure travellers.

Those seats will now be much more difficult to fill when FR enters some markets, and yes many of these travellers will pick the lowest price ahead of distance from airport to city centre and other such factors.

In the end a lack of revenue in GO may lead to cut backs on routes, which in turn the FFs like on here will find to be negative.

Surely we will soon see another SAS savings programme a la "4Excellence" or "CoreSAS" or call it what you will.

CPH-Flyer

I would not put too much weight in Ryan Air calling Copenhagen for a base. Opening and closing bases with a handful of planes by Ryan Air happens almost as frequently as I change shirts. They are very big on annoucing when the open a new and small bases, but very quiet when they stop having the planes there. For some destinations planes have been based for the summer season only.

That being said, the market in CPH is going to be shaken up a fair bit and all operators in the airport will feel the heat. I would venture a guess that DY may feel it more than SK, but DY has the financial strength to pick up the gauntlet, which SK for sure does not.

From a personal perspective, I have yet to fly either Ryan Air or Easy Jet. And have flown with Norwegian maybe 10 flights, so they are not likely (also given my current hometown) to move much traffic from me. But I guess I am not the typical passenger anyway...

Mattyb44

Please expand upon your snobbery. Although you may as well not bother as its clear you are far too self respecting to address the likes of me, who uses the most convenient supplier of "round metal tube public transport with wings" to get me from A to B. If I want to get home to the UK from CPH, and Ryanair happen to fly to an airport 15mins from my house, and SAS/BA fly to an airport that will take me 90mins to get home, I will fly Ryanair, and save a bucket load of cash in the process. Further allowing me to travel long haul in luxury with my family.

Sometimes peoples attitudes really do stink!!

MrCharming

I think Ryanair can steal a lot of intra europe traffic from SAS(SAS product isn't exactly "premier" anymore)

Lot of "traditional" travelers that I know would be willing to take Ryanair to save a few bucks - They don't travel more than 1-4 times a year anyways, so doesn't really matter to them.

Personally I don't fly Ryanair unless I absolutely have to, but this is due to loads of bad experiences..

irishguy28

Well...that's a little exaggerated.

I have never before heard of Ryanair designating a brand-new destination as a BASE before. Usually, it takes time for them to build up the destination. This aspect of the announcement doesn't seem to have been appreciated - they are starting with only 3 routes, but pretty quickly, there will be many more.

And again, it is almost unprecedented for Ryanair to completely withdraw from a base. They've had well-documented tussles with Marseille and Valencia, and withdrew base status from both - but they did not stop flying to the airports in question. Valencia is, in any case, a base once more. Other base closures - Maastricht (currently a base again), Kerry, etc, are still Ryanair destinations - they just don't/didn't have the same number of planes "based" there. Losing "base" status just means that it continues to be served from other destinations.

In fact, the only Ryanair base closure I know of that took it completely out of the network was Belfast City. But if it's more common than that, please let me know!

CPH is unlikely to disappear from Ryanair's roster any time soon.

tsastor

Hear-hear!

FT Guest xyzpdq

Well, even as I was not the target of your attack, I will provide you with my five cents on insights.

If really all what you are bying is transport from A to B (or B-50km as is the case with most FR airports) and you every time factor in all the extra costs that is associated with FR (credit card charge, seat selection charge, bagage charge, check-in charge, additional transport, etc etc) then I fully understand you select FR for your travel. And if you really do live close to an FR airport - then you have something going for you.

But I fro one also prioritise other elements than price (and thus appearently being a snob). Just to mention a few: Flying to the an airport close to the actual city I want to go to, frequency and timing of flights, seat pitch, the service package (e.g. I am not overcharged to an extreme if I forget to check-in at home), how to be treated in case irregularities, etc.), minimise time spend on transportation (getting to/from airport, time in airport, at gate, etc.), in-flight service. Then I would not even get into how FR treats their employees and the attitude of the company as such.

I am not a potential FR customer - with the current offering - because I just do not buy into the offer. But some will of course, and thus it will affect SK, but more severely DY and EZ. And do remember the FR is closing Malmö, so some capacity will flow from Malmó to Copenhagen.

I picked a random Friday in May, one/way CPH-LON: For two persons 798 with SK, 802 with FR (including bagage and seat selection as I would like to sit next to the one I am travelling with). With SK I had several flights to choose from, with FR just 2. In this case who would go with FR?

But, Of course you can find cases where FR is cheeper (for the flight alone) - and likely considerably so. But if the savings you do acquire from FR flights really can get you biz class seats on IC flights for you and your family - then you must really travel FR a lot (or is luxury in this case travel in economy on legacy carriers? - which I can understand if you have to endure FR for a full year).

So do my attitude stink?
Or do I just value other elements than money?

Pandion1Haliaetus

Fully agree!

Mattyb44

All of your post is completely irrelevant. I merely took umbridge to the fact that apparently the only people who would dare to fly with FR are those of "no self respect". I at no stage commented that FR is a better airline, offer a better product or that people should leave SAS and fly FR. FR have a market, and they have made a huge success of seeking out that market. But to call its 83.8million (last years figures) passengers "non self respecting" is completely uncalled for.

Mattyb44

How about the charge for seat selection with SK? Not everybody is a EBD/EBG.
SAS and FR have the same seat pitch too.

And my random Thusdary in May for 2 people CPH-LON.
SAS with PAID seat selection, 980dkk
FR with PAID seat selection plus 1 checked bag each, 654dkk + 20dkk for the cup of coffee SAS gives you. 694dkk.

Saving with FR for 2 people on a weekend to London, 286dkk. Forget checking a bag and go hand baggage only like most people would for a weekend away and thats 532dkk cheaper. And I am 100% certain there is a market for that kind of saving, and those planes will be going out full.

But unless I can save significant time/money, I will continue to fly SAS/BA between CPH-LON for my business travel.

fassy

At some point the Ryanair concept has to collapse - probably after more of the small airports will closed down and Ryanair has to pay the fair charges for landing, handling or their crews and maintenance cannot longer keep up with the pressure

They have been so cheap because they could afford to press those tiny airports dry, then move on to the next one like just happend on Lübeck. I doubt that CPH will play along and so one of the big factors in the ticket pricing for CPH is gone.

The sad thing is that a lot of people do not compare or see the full picture.

They think: I will want to go from CPH to London, I heard Ryanair is cheap. They see the base fare is significantly cheaper and just take it. Perhaps just once after they find out the extra costs for transportation to the airport, crazy fees and miserable flying experience - but perhaps they keep on thinking they made a bargain since the fare was 10 times cheaper than on SK and next time don't even check for alternatives and go for FR directly. I know quite some people like that. In Germany they call themselves "Sparfüchse" and have elevated hunting bargains to a religion - and as we all know, religious thinking often makes you go blind for the rest of the world.

Anyway, I will never set foot on FR metal - not because I'm a snob, but I have my principles not to support businesses that operate that way.

And next to it, since at some point something severe will happen. The turnaround times at the airport are cutting it to close, fueling practices are ridiculous, not sure how they run maintenance - probably cheap and last but not least the idea to being transported by underpayed but overworked flight deck crews doesn't seem right to me.

irishguy28

Ryanair's cost savings don't come only from their choice of airports.

They utilise their planes better, have lower labour costs and higher productivity than most of their competitors, and derive more income from ancillaries.

http://centreforaviation.com/analysi...ankings-104204

(On those 2012 figures, Ryanair made a profit of €80,943 per employee, while SAS made a loss of €6,252 per employee)

They've been perfecting the model for some time already - and now they are responding to the fact that the bargain-basement no-frills model can't provide any more organic growth.

I wouldn't write them off just yet. But many have done so in the past.

This 2013 article also explains in depth why they have the lowest costs per passenger of any European airline.

fassy

As far as I can tell the article pretty much confirms pretty much what I have said?

What they leave out is the way Ryanair forces those airports to offer not even cost covering fees and charges. Some would call it even extortion as the airports have become captive to FR which negotiates with a 'give us x or we leave and you can close your airport'

Also the statement that the crews are mor flexible and cheaper is true but for an airline I'm feeling better having well trained and paid crews rather than contracted pilots which perhaps think how to get over the next year while performing the taxi checklist

nussle

I just hope and pray that SAS uses the opportunity to return itself to a full service airline. In the last few years it has tried to beat Ryan air at its own game.

I hardly ever fly Ryan but last time I did I found their staff cheerful, compare that to the usual grumpy grandma's on the SAS out of Arlanda. The food quality on SAS paid or not is no better that Ryan and the seats are not further apart.

You trumpet baggage handling, but Ryan does that for a charge after you add all the charges up Ryan usually comes out cheaper for the same game.

I would really like SAS to become a full service airline that is different from Ryan air and looks after its passengers, its crew and you could feel it in the cabin. I want the business lounge at ARN to not remind me of a communist austerity program and I want a beer given to me by a smiling happy crew member regardless of class I fly.

Until I see this then SAS is just trying to roll down towards Ryan level and that ain't where it should be, but that is almost where it is now.

TPJ

If two passengers are booked under the same PNR, they will be assigned two adjacent seats (for free) at online check-in.

Some time ago I started a thread on BA forum: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...concerned.html and the general consensus is that recent FR service improvements make this airline more attractive to passengers (including Corporate/business fliers - as I mentioned in the thread - FR claims 22% of their passengers fly on business).

Apologies for promoting my own thread