ksu

Danish payback, not Norwegian. The 09.35 departure is as unreachable as the ARN departure was from those airports not having a morning flight directly to CPH. So no advantage from HAU, AES, MOL. KSU or any airport north of Trondheim or between TRD and BGO.

w0r1dtrave1er

Oh crap I think you're right.... FML...

looks like it ends around 26 Oct 2019 .. but OSL continues...

highupinthesky

So it's picking between pest and cholera. Connect through OSL and fly on discount airline which leaves people stranded for days when disruption occures and only fly 2 rotations per week, or connect through CPH with an additional night for sightseeing and maybe Tivoli visit in CPH. Just heard there are free Tivoli access cards in the diamond goody back today, but only 100 so they might already be gone.

Sorry for spoiling your day.

Edit: Just checked the DY website. It looks like OSL ends on Oct. 23 but is back on March 29

FlyingMoose

Why? I don't like CPH, it [redacted by moderator] still only gets me to a handful of locations worldwide. The point is that if SAS is turning ARN into a stub and feeder location for CPH, I have a choice of European hubs to connect into. I'll fly SAS if I can get somewhere on a direct as a compromise between the convenience of a direct flight and SAS's poor service, food and generally unthoughtful timing of its flights. Now, if I need to connect, there is no reason to have any loyalty to SAS and I can fly to HEL or spend another 30 minutes to AMS or another 60 to CDG/LHR/FRA and place my loyalty with airlines that can then get me virtually everywhere from their hubs and provide considerably better service across the board and better FFPs.

I really don't think SAS has thought the concept of making theirselves a 3rd choice airline in what is I guess still one of their main markets. There is no lack of intercontinental traffic as evident by the fleet of feeders from AF/BA/LH/KL/TK and others and the Middle Eastern airlines flying multiple times a day. The problem is that SAS can't capture those flyers and its not because their customers aren't constantly reminding them why. I simply do not believe that its impossible to sustain a west coast long haul route from ARN though I do believe that LAX is probably the least viable location. Especially since AY is sustaining them from HEL.

view

[Comment redacted by moderator] Stockholm is on the outskirts of Europe [mod edit]. Connections are simply not there to profitably fill the flight. [Mod edit]

fassy

CPH-Flyer

I would say that Finnair has shown that a somewhat perriferal location in Europe does not preclude building an airline on connecting passengers. The difference in choice of destinations between AY and SK is probably the main reason why one made it work and one did not. Making people connect through Stockholm to the US as opposed to making people connect through Helsinki to Asia.

To make passengers take a disadvantage through connection location, you either need a huge network, a very attractive product, or really good prices. I would say SK can only really score well on the last one, which is probably why connecting Europe to the US via Arlanda does not work for them. Hong Kong could work out, but the timing was not good for connections from Europe.
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view

Sure it is doable, like you say Finnair does it. However their LAX leaves at 16.40 and not 9.40, so they have ample time to feed from all over and of course they are part of the oneWorld JV across the atlantic as well securing their revenues. Main issue for SAS is 09.40 departure and limited feed possibilities.

FlyingMoose

They could be, the location just requires a certain approach. I also believe there is enough point-to-point traffic for a west coast route to work, again the LAX route was packed almost all the time. If SAS had a more desirable product, better timing and service minded staff, it could easily be successful. I'm just disappointed by the Danish Airlines strategy of SAS and the usual lack of competence from the Swedish government to halt it. There is a direct link between reachability of a country and economic success which seems to be a mystery to Swedish politicians.

I'm not sure how my personal dislike for certain people is rudeness, I'm sure we all dislike certain people.

highupinthesky

Yes, but most pax on the route were connecting from CPH or OSL.

RedChili

It seems that all of you are missing the possibility that a major factor in all this is the economics of scale.

SAS never had more than four A330s stationed at ARN, while they had a total of (IIRC) 12 A330s/A340s at CPH. Those four A330s were supposed to do four daily rotations to EWR, ORD, LAX and HKG. That's why HKG-ARN departed at a time of day which suits leisure travelers very well, but not business travelers. And that's the reason why ARN-LAX was so early that connections in ARN were really difficult. It's the same problem which they had a few years ago when they had an A340 on four weekly ARN-PEK combined with three weekly ARN-BKK. Those flights had horrible arrival times in ARN with tiny possibilities for connections.

In order to run a successful long-haul hub, you need at least 10 planes at each hub. With 10 planes or more, you can spread the departures out during the day and attract high yield passengers.

SAS basically had two choices: The easy choice was to move LAX and HKG to CPH, where they already have a sizeable long-haul hub. The other possibility is that they could have added some more A330s to build up a viable hub at ARN. They could have started with places like PEK, PVG, TYO, KIX, and possibly even YYZ. Now, they're basically throwing in the towel concerning ARN. Their competitors are already serving ARN with PEK, PVG, BKK, SIN, DEL, DXB, DOH, ADD, and EWR, while SAS is left with EWR and ORD.

fassy

highupinthesky

The reason for the bad HKG-ARN departure and arrival times were lack of good slots at a reasonable price at HKG. When the HKG route were moved to CPH it started out with the bad slots for the first couple of months, before SK managed to get better slots at HKG. I'm pretty sure this is the case for ARN/CPH-LAX too.

Also. Both ARN and CPH are lacking long-haul gates. So maybe there is no more 11am-12pm slots available in those 2 airports?

RedChili

I can't speak for CPH, but my impression is that ARN is mostly squeezed for widebody gates between 12:00-15:00. There are very few widebody flights after 21:00. I'm pretty sure that ARN could easily accommodate a HKG flight with a departure around 23:00 and an arrival at 5:30.

highupinthesky

The bad HKG schedule were not down to lack of good slots in ARN and CPU, but in HKG. My comment about lack of slots at ARN and CPH is regarding the early departure time of the LAX bound flight.