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.

SK AAR

That analysis/explanation of the inconvenient ARN - HKG schedule sounds right. Thank you

highupinthesky

I do agree. Having routes with a total round trip of more than 24 hours is not good if you only have a few long haul routes from that hub. But it's not impossible and the congestion in the airspace and at the airports are playing a higher and higher role when airlines build their schedule.

RedChili

IMHO, the optimal schedule would have been something like this:

ARN-HKG 23:00-15:20
HKG-ARN 23:55-05:20
ARN-EWR 10:30-13:00
EWR-ARN 17:30-07:30
ARN-ORD 11:00-13:00
ORD-ARN 17:00-08:30
ARN-LAX 12:00-14:20
LAX-ARN 18:00-14:00

But, as stated above, that would mean five planes for four routes. I have no idea how much SAS is paying for their A330s, but if we assume a cost of $600,000 per plane, it means that the average cost per destination would increase from $600,000 to $750,000. But add a few destinations, and the economics improve:

ARN-ICN 16:30-09:00
ICN-ARN 11:00-14:00
ARN-KIX 17:00-10:40
KIX-ARN 13:00-16:30

Now, we're down to an assumed cost per destination of $700,000.

It's a complete disaster for both SAS and ARN that AY can operate to 15-20 destinations from HEL, while SK only has two from ARN, two from OSL, and 11 from CPH (for a total of 11). SAS should've had 7-8 destinations from OSL, 10-12 from ARN, and 15-20 from CPH.

herwig

It all comes down to what economically makes sense. I think the strategy to use the newly purchased A321LRs to expand the route network could help here. It would allow many more options with less capacity that needs to be filled and SAS could potentially experiment a bit, e.g. something like ARN-YYZ, OSL-ORD and CPH-YUL or even CPH-ADD and CPH-BOM to check out which routes are actually viable.
In contrast to Finnair, SAS drives a different strategy and actually operates most of its long-haul flights on a daily basis, while FInnair often flies routes like e.g. Xian, Chongqing, Guangzhou or Nanjing only 2-4 times a week and that often only during summer. It is thus easier to claim more destinations while SAS is not that far behind counting the actual number of long-haul flights.

FlyingMoose

Very few people would be excited about SK trying longhaul routes on narrow body planes again, even if they are going to be directs.

RedChili

While that is true, it's still a fact that Finnair has 22 long-haul planes, while SAS has 18. Finnair has a home market of 5.5 million and GDP of $280 million, while SAS has a home market of 21.4 million and GDP of almost $1,400 million. Just by a comparison of the population and GDP of the home market, SAS should've had between 90-100 long-haul planes. (While I realize that this number is not realistic in real life, I believe that they should have been somewhere between 30-40 by now.)

hugolover

I can see why pax are frustrated that the route will be moved to CPH. However we must see the inspiration of these decisions. The more routes that are canned from SE mean a greatly reduced SE carbon footprint. That has an immense health benefit for the SE people and the climate emergency.

It makes sense that with leading environmental experts Greta that SAS follows in her footprints and comes up with a clear response to SE climate emergency policy.

Theres surely a chance that Sweden could have next to no aviation emissions in the next decades.

I've noticed that SAS has a number of "immoral fares" (to use the words of LH CEO Spohr) where they dump onto certain markets in the EU. ARN/GOT have a reputation for some very dumpy fares across carriers with the likes of LH Light TA fares and BArb in every way possible. I hope the SE government will legislate to help the climate emergency with perhaps a further levy to encourage pax to take fewer or no flights.

highupinthesky

The A321LR won't solve the issue RedChilli are describing as they can't fly the same routes as the enhanced A330's, A340's and coming A350's. The A321LR's will only make it possible to fly on routes where it's not commercial viable to use the larger birds. I doubt we will see A321LR's on routes like OSL-ORD. They will most likely be used on routes where either the originating or destination airport are a smaller airport and not on routes where both the originating and destination airport are a hub airport.

highupinthesky

It's not enough to just look at the home marked and GDP. You also need to look at the habits of the people in the home marked. If you just looked at the home marked and GDP Saudi airlines should have been a MUCH larger airline and Riyadh Airport should have had a lot more then the 14 international and 20 domestic gates they have today. People in DK, NO and SE are generally focused on Europa, while people in Finland are more international focused. SK has for years had the same focus, which is why they have a huge short haul fleet and small long haul fleet compared to other airlines in Europa like e.g. Swiss with 29 long haul birds and 60 short haul or Austrian with 12 long haul birds and 69 short haul birds.

RedChili

I would say that Scandinavians are just as much focused on intercontinental travel as Finnish people. Remember that in the 1990s, Finnair actually only had four MD-11s. At that time, SAS had many more 767s. But Finnair has grown, while SAS has stayed put.

The comparison with Austrian and Swiss doesn't work as there's virtually no domestic market in Austria or Switzerland. The "domestic" market in Scandinavia is huge. Just look at the number of daily flights between the three capitals, or the number of flights from OSL to BGO, TRD and SVG. Remember that the area of the three Scandinavian countries are almost twice the size of Germany, Austria and Switzerland put together. The longest SAS domestic flights are more than 2,000 km, while the longest "domestic" flights of the LH group is perhaps HAM-VIE, which is 769 km. So, SAS needs more narrowbodies for its "domestic" market than the entire LH group needs for its "domestic" market.

Also, Austrian only has a single hub, while Swiss has ZRH and a minor hub at GVA which need to be linked to other European cities. SAS has three capitals which need to serve cities like LON, PAR, AMS, FRA and many other.

highupinthesky

SK have less domestic marked in DK than Swiss and Austrian have in their home countries, but over 1/3 of the SK short haul fleet is stationed in DK. Beside that. SK have around 9 short haul birds per long haul bird. Swiss have around 2 short haul birds per long haul. Austrian have around 6 short haul birds per long haul. Even the long distance in Scandinavian do not justify that difference.
If we compare with Finnair instead. They have about the same distances to deal with as SK have, but they only have around 2 short haul birds per long haul.

Another factor why Finnair is successful in their long haul business, is that they are almost alone in the Helsinki airport. SK have to compete with at least twice the number of airlines in each of their hub airports compared to Finnair in their hub. Swiss and Austrian have a similar competitive picture as SK.

RedChili

The reason why I wrote "domestic" in quotation marks is to consider Scandinavia as one unit, the home market of SAS, so that all SAS flights within Scandinavia are "domestic," i.e. they are within the home market. So, a flight from CPH-OSL or CPH-ARN is, in that context, a "domestic" flight. The physical size of the home market of Austrian or Swiss are really tiny compared to the physical size of the home market of SAS.

If you look at the Wikipedia page for busiest flight routes in Europe, you can see that six of the top 30 routes are within the home market of SAS:
5 OSL-TRD
8 OSL-BGO
16 OSL-SVG
17 ARN-CPH
20 CPH-OSL
22 ARN-OSL

At the same time, no airports in Austria or Switzerland exist on that list at all.

And, no, Finnair does not have the same distances to deal with nor the same traffic. The longest Finnair home market route is HEL-IVL at 931 km, less than half of the longest SAS home market route, to a city with a population of 4,000. Concerning Finnair, you need to understand that the distance from HEL to the five largest cities in their home market is:
Tampere 143 km
Turku 150 km
Oulo 514 km
Jyvaskyla 235 km
Lahti 100 km

It's important to realize that five of the six largest cities in Finland are located in a tiny area in the south-west of the country, and it's basically flat with great highways and railroads. Why should anybody fly from Tampere, Turku or Lahti to Helsinki when they can basically drive their own car to the capital in less than two hours?

It's true that Finnair is almost alone on long-haul out of HEL, but if we go back in time let's say 15 years, SAS was in basically the same position at ARN. The only competition which they had was CO to EWR, TG to BKK, CA to PEK, and MH KUL-ARN-EWR. Finnair has grown and absorbed all growth on long-haul out of HEL, while SAS hasn't grown at all out of ARN, so all the increase has been absorbed by Norwegian, China Eastern, Singapore Airlines, Air India, Emirates, Qatar, Ethiopian, plus an increase in the number of flights on Thai and Air China.

RedChili

Just as a fun comparison with other airlines and home markets on that list:

There's two routes within the home market of Air France: TLS-ORY and NCE-ORY.
There's five routes within the home market of Iberia: MAD-BCN, BCN-PMI, MAD-PMI, MAD-LPA and MAD-TFN.
There's two routes within the home market of Alitalia: CTA-FCO and FCO-PMO.
There's five routes within the home market of Lufthansa: TXL-MUC, FRA-TXL, MUC-HAM, MUC-DUS and FRA-HAM.
There's one route within the home market of Aegean: ATH-SKG.

No other airlines have any routes within their home markets. So, of the top 30 busiest routes within Europe, the home market covers:
6 routes: SAS
5 routes: Iberia and Lufthansa
2 routes: Air France and Alitalia
1 route: Aegean

That should tell you a little bit about why SAS needs a lot of short-haul planes.

highupinthesky

I'm not saying that SK isn't flying a lot of "domestic" flight, but all those flight you have listed only require like 20 birds. Remove those 20 birds from the SK fleet and SK will still have twice the number of short haul birds per long haul, compared to any of the other airlines I've mentioned.

As I just wrote above. Even if you remove all the birds SK are using for the "home" marked they still have more than twice the number of short haul birds versus long hauls compared to the other airlines I've mentioned. So the "home" marked doesn't explain why they have so many more short haul birds compared to other airlines. IMHO the explanation is that their strategy have been to focus on the European marked instead of the long haul marked. A strategy that ryaniar by the way have great success with, whether we like it or not.