RedChili

Oh, no, it’s far more than 20 airplanes. Just look at today as an example. There are 34 flights on OSL-TRD, 34 flights on OSL-BGO, 32 flights on OSL-SVG, 28 flights on OSL-CPH, 28 flights on OSL-ARN, and 32 flights on ARN-CPH. That’s a total of 188 flights. One plane can manage on average max 7 flights per day, so SAS needs about 27 planes for these six routes alone. And then there are dozens of other routes within Scandinavia.

I have the impression that you don’t understand how big the domestic network in Norway is. SAS serves 15 destinations in Norway, and when all routes are counted, they serve 25 city-pairs in Norway alone, and the busiest of them have 34 daily one-way flights.

But let’s make a small test just to check out how many planes we’re talking about. According to Airfleets, SAS has 4 A319, 11 A320, 18 A32N, 8 A321, 3 736, 27 73G, 29 738, 1 CRJ1000, 23 CRJ900, and 8 A32N for SAS Ireland. If we ignore the few A319, 736, and CRJ1000, we’re left with a fleet of 124 narrowbodies. Let’s just take a look at Flightradar where a selection of those were flying yesterday, let’s say that we take the first 3 A320, 4 A32N, 2 A321, 5 73G, 5 738, 5 CRJ, and 2 A32N for SAS Ireland. I’ll just choose the first planes on Airfleets list.

This survey shows that OY-KAW had 5 flights within the home market and 2 flights to other destinations in Europe, OY-KAY had 6-2, OY-KAL had no flights, LN-RGM had 0-2, LN-RGL had 2-4, LN-RGN had 1-6, LN-RGO had 2-4, OY-KBK had 3-4, OY-KBL had 2-3, LN-TUF had 10-0, LN-RRM had 2-0, LN-RNN had no flights, LN-RNO had 11-0, LN-RPK had 12-0, LN-RCN had 9-0, LN-RCY had 9-0, LN-RRS had 6-2, LN-RRT had 6-0, LN-RRU had 4-2, EZ-JZU had 0-8, ES-ACM had 6-0, EI-GEB was not flying for SAS, EI-FPA had 4-7, EI-FPB had 5-2, EI-SIA had 0-5, and EI-SIB had 0-4. The total for all these 26 random airplanes were 105 flights within the home market of Scandinavia, and 57 flights between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe (6.2 flights per plane). In other words, 65% of these flights were within the Scandinavian home market.

Another factor which you don’t take into consideration in your comparisons with Finnair, Swiss, and Austrian is that SAS has many more cities to serve for the European flights. Take LHR as an example. Today, SAS has 5 departures to OSL, 6 to ARN, 5 to CPH, and 1 to SVG, for a total of 17 departures. AY only has 6 to HEL, OS only has 4 to VIE, LX has 7 to ZRH and 5 to GVA. Because SAS has three major capital hubs, they need to serve many destinations in Europe out of every single hub, something that Finnair and Austrian doesn’t do and Swiss only to a limited extent with a few destinations out of GVA. According to Airfleets, SAS and SAS Ireland has a narrowbody fleet of 140, Swiss has 60, Austrian has 69, and Finnair has 37. (Airfleets for some reason doesn’t include Finnair’s E190 and ATR72. According to Finnair’s own page, they have 61 narrowbodies.) But if you divide the SAS fleet into its three hubs, it’s only 47 planes per hub. So, SAS actually has fewer narrowbodies per hub than what any of the three other airlines have.

A third explanation is that compared to Swiss and Austrian, SAS has much longer average block time on their European flights. Swiss and Austrian are located in the middle of Europe, with few flights above two hours. SAS, on the other hand, has several flights within Europe that are around the four hour mark, and some even six hours.

So, no, I simply do not agree at all that SAS has chosen the European network instead of an intercontinental network. It’s just that they have botched the growth opportunities for intercontinental flights. They don’t have an exceptional high number of narrowbodies. They have an exceptional low number of widebodies.

Daner

Anybody have a guess as to when award travel slots might become available for the new CPH-LAX and LAX-CPH flights? I have points and need to make a trip in late February, but am not finding anything at sas.se or https://travelhacks.azurewebsites.net

dodgeflyer

I guess SASs real issue is the continued ownership by the government, stiffling much of its growth potential.

SASs investable capital is more or less fixed; say €1bn, and a short-haul aircraft is €20m/piece and long-haul aircrafts €100m then they can either invest in 50 sh or 10 lh or any combination thereof. Because of its ownership history and cloes ties to the government, SAS has largely opted to serve domestic routes.

SH is by and large less profitable for the network carriers. BA on the other hand has significantly cut short haul capacity, noticably domestic, and focused solely on growing LHR as an base, and growing it long-haul. Its short haul operations merely exists to feed its long-haul. As a result they cut routes unless they are leisure routes (seasonal ala SAS). As such, BA diverts its capital to its highest earning assets.


Now, I think the error for SAS has been that any growth would have required increased capital given its precaurious state for years; it is unlikely that the Scandi governments (and now SE/DK) would support growth which would not serve as a function for the countries - want to increase lh, tough, it doesn't serve the domestic market. Whilst a larger SAS is more stable, the last few years seem to indicate some sort of stability, so I think there's no desire to upset the apple cart. In that sense, a Danish investor is more likely to want to focus on LH growth rather than domestic market so perhaps it is good for SAS to become more Danish.


If SAS could make higher profits elsewhere they would do so; I think the reason they don't is a) its capital is fixed (ie they own the assets) and b) changing to heavier lh fleet would require a complete change in its business model

highupinthesky

I like statistics. You can always twist it to show the picture you want.

It doesn't really matter whether SK has an exceptional high number or short haul birds or exceptional low number of long haul birds. End of the day the result is the same. SK has historically focused on the European marked instead of the overseas marked, and are still more focused on the European marked than the overseas marked. If someone don't like that priority. Feel free to pick another airline for your next flight.

Beside that. If SK were suddenly to bump up the number of long haul birds to match other comparable airlines, I'm pretty sure they would soon get into issued with slots at both CPH and ARN. At rush hour, both airports has zero or limited free gates which can handle the wide body birds. CPH are extending at the moment, but it will be another 3-5 years before they will be able to add more than 1 or 2 gates. ARN has plans for a new pier and have started relocating the building which currently occupies the space, but it will still be 1-2 years before they can start building the new pier.

RedChili

I don't know about CPH, but at ARN, my impression is that widebody flights are spread out all over the day. The only squeeze that I can see is in the afternoon, let's say 12:00-15:00. I'm sure that with the right timing, you could add another 8-10 widebody flights during the day. But I don't have time to look at that right now.

RoyalSwazi

Very interesting analysis RedChili .

In my opinion, SAS has lacked a proper strategy for a long time. Back in the nineties (FBU days) they had a thoroughly impressive network consisting of EWR, LHR, CDG, BRU, AMS and DUS direct, plus connections via CPH & ARN. LH, KL & BA saw the opportunities, with their much larger hubs offering many more destinations than the home carrier. If people have to transfer it doesn’t really matter where (FRA excluded). Two shocks follow: deregulation and the opening of OSL. Then another two in the shape of 9/11 and Norwegian. EWR is shut, the domestic market a bloodbath with Braathens, corporate travel tumbled and business class short haul no longer consists of 17 rows. Suddenly SAS is close to bankruptcy (again). I remember when SAS finally launched SFO management had tried to convince the board to finance more long haul aircraft for quite some time. From what I gather this has become one of the more profitable routes in the network now.

Meanwhile, Finnair have found a strategy connecting Europe & the Far East via Helsinki. They invest and build critical mass, offering good fares in SAS’ home market. QR, TG, EK, ET join the party with options south & east with good fares and in general better products too. Norwegian have eaten away at the bottom of the market.

SAS have a good longhaul business class, but their economy offering is worse than most of their competitors. I have not tried Plus long haul so can’t comment. Within Europe their premium offering is variable, their Y product is better than some and worse than many. I’m glad they now offer more direct short haul flights, but they need more long haul destinations if they are to become more competitive. It makes sense to consolidate these at one hub, with good connections to their short haul network. They will never become LH, but they don’t need to. Scandinavian business operate world wide, and leisure travellers have some of the highest disposable incomes plus they travel a lot. There are some glaring omissions in SK’s long haul network, and it’ll be interesting to see if they decide to focus on something or continue to throw darts. I wish them the very best.

highupinthesky

In ARN the problem is they use the long haul pier as overflow for the short haul flights, so in rush hour there are only a few slots left.

If you accept rubbish departure times link CPH-LAX with SK there are available slots, but if you want the good slots for US bound flight and good slots for Asia bound flights there is almost none available in both CPH and ARN. OSL I don't know, but I think they started their expansion earlier, so they might have available slots, or will have very soon.

RedChili

Yes and no.

Yes, they do use widebody gates for narrowbody planes. A couple of months ago, I arrived at a widebody gate with a ridiculous CRJ900. I was thrilled, as I had expected a bus.

But, no, these narrowbody planes do not "own" slots to these gates. Gates are assigned when the planes arrive. When there are available gates, a tiny narrowbody may be allowed into a widebody gate. But when there's a squeeze, they would prioritize the widebodies and use a bus gate for the narrowbodies. The fact that they assign narrowbodies to these gates is a sure sign that they have a lot of widebody capacity left.

ARN T5 has 18 gates that can handle widebodies:

Schengen gates 3-6 and 13-16 can handle widebodies up to A300/B767 (13-16 can handle non-Schengen arrivals). Schengen gates 7-8 can handle widebodies up to B747. Non-schengen gates 17-18 can handle widebodies up to B747. Mixed gates F28, F29, F32, F35, and F39 can handle widebodies up to B747. Mixed gate F36 can handle widebodies up to A380. So, ARN T5 can accept eight non-schengen widebodies at the same time. There's no point in time during the day when ARN even comes close to this number.

So, if we take yesterday as an example: During the entire day, there were 18 widebody turnarounds at ARN.

1. A DK 333 that departed at 0715 and arrived back at 1600. That plane would normally use gate 7 or 8.
2. A BLX 763 that arrived 0325 from AYT and departed 0710 to KGS. That plane could have used any gate from 13-16.
3. A BLX 763 that arrived at 1620 from KGS and departed at 1750 to LCA. That plane would need an F gate.

Then, there were 15 other flights that would need one of the eight gates 17-18 or F28-F39:
0640-0740 ET 788
0700-1430 TG 77W
0715-0955 SK 333
0720-1020 SK 333
0835-1015 SQ 359
0955-1125 TK 332
1000-1225 SK 333
1120-1325 DY 789
1300-1740 QR 359
1310-1505 EK 77W
1310-1745 DY 789
1720-1910 CA 333
1840-2040 AI 788
2045-2240 QR 359
2050-2150 ET 788

Even if we allow some wiggle room in case of early arrivals and late departures, at no point in time is there more than six widebodies at the same time. That's around 10:00, when there's a TK 332, TG 77W, SK 333, SQ 359, plus one SK 333 which is due to leave at 09:55 and another which is due to arrive at 10:00. Moreover, the TG 77W spends 7:30 at ARN, so they often tow that plane to remote between 08:00-12:30, meaning that the maximum number of widebodies at the gate is actually five. And they have eight available gates.

Assuming that an average widebody spends three hours at the gate, there was still room for three flights 06:00-09:00, three flights 09:00-12:00, three flights 12:00-15:00, four flights 15:00-18:00, five flights 18.00-21:00, and six flights 21:00-24:00, for a total of 24 new widebody flights ex-Schengen during yesterday. With a bit more clever schedule and shorter turnaround times, you could add even more. (That's of course assuming that they are willing to bus people to the smallest narrowbodies. This plan would probably prohibit any plane with less than 120 seats from using a gate.)

East_and_West

Great post RedChili, this is some impressive work you have done here (as well as in your previous posts). Totally agree with you that SAS could use some more long-haul destinations/widebodies... Provided of course that pax not originating from ARN or CPH are given a chance to get there before departure at a reasonable time frame. Just a couple of remarks/questions:

How is this possible, since these gates are located in the Schengen area, before passport control?

A bit OT, but I am surprised that LCA (let alone KGS) can handle widebodies. I have been a couple of times bussed off from even larger widebodies (IST comes in mind, and I think, BKK and MUC?), but goodly enough they used separate buses (in fact, proper mini-coaches) for J class so that went smoothly. I couldn't imagine how the boarding process of even a 767 would play out at an airport such as KGS. We have a client in Kos so I fly there occasionally, and even in mid-season boarding a 737 or an A319 can be quite hectic...

Anyway, since places such as KGS or LCA have managed to do that in peak season (where peak season in these airports means over-capacity/overcrowding season), I am pretty confident that ARN could find a way to accommodate the CRJs and ATRs that will be orphaned if their twin-bridge gates are allocated to widebodies.

highupinthesky

You forget one parameter in you analyze and that's the total number of gates available.
It's correct that short haul birds are not scheduled to use the long haul pier, but ARN do schedule traffic so it has to use long haul gates for short flights from time to time, and this reduces the number of gates available for long haul birds. That's what I meant with using the long haul pier as overflow for the short haul piers. ARN simply schedules more short haul flights at peak times than their short haul piers can handle.
The long haul pier are also used when a short haul flight arrive as none schengen and has to continue as a schengen flight or the opposite. Again reducing the number of gates available for long haul flights.

The reason you weren't bused from the CRJ900 flight is because ARN only have a few remote stands. They were build within the last 2-3 years and are designed to take the large long haul birds from discount airlines. ARN would rather use a long haul gate for a CRJ900 than dogging a discount long haul bird at it.
At ARN you are only bused if you arrive on DY domestic flight, which has to do a schengen flight afterwards or opposite. SK are scheduling longer ground time, which allows the bird to be towed to the correct terminal for it's next flight.

highupinthesky

I don't think anyone disagrees the we would like to see more long haul routes from SK. The discussion is about why they historically have down prioritized the long haul business compared to their short haul business.

Gate 13-16 is in a closed area at the end of pier. There is a dedicated passport and custom check for those gates. They are not flex gates and can only be used for none Schengen flights. The long haul pier I'm talking about is pier F with gates F26-69. All those gates are flex gates which can be used for either Schengen or none Schengen flights. None Schengen pax's are at the lower level and Schengen pax are at the upper level.

It's pretty hard at ARN for several reasons. First of all because the CRJ's and ATR's are normally only used for domestig flights at ARN, and they all uses terminal 3 or 4 which is not connected to terminal 5 where the long haul gates are located. So the CRJ's and ATR's are not the birds which occupies the long haul gates. Secondly because ARN do not have remote stands like other airports. It's only 2-3 years ago when they build the first 2 remote stands, and they are both designed for discount long haul flights in an attempt to attract more discount long haul airlines.

East_and_West

ARN is interestingly enough one of the very few airports that have kept their domestic flights area separate from the international Schengen area for some reason... But exactly since domestic flights (which I think account for about 1/5 in terms of total pax traffic, and hence significantly more than that in terms aircraft traffic) are operated from terminals 4 and 3, and some carriers with non-negligible shares (AY,BA,AF) are in terminal 2, I would be surprised if there is such a big shortage of slots for narrowbodies in terminal 5. Not trying to make an argument that this isn't the case, which could very well be, just that it sounds strange.


Those gates at the end of the pier after passport control are designated 17+ (or 18+ I am not sure)... Gates 11-16 are located around the large duty free store, before passport control. I was positive about it but still checked my Wallet app to make sure. From a quick look, just within the few past weeks I came up with an ATH-bound A3 flight from gate 14A, and a MUC-bound LH flight from 16B, which by the way I recall being just before the non-Schengen area.

highupinthesky

It's historically and due to the physical layout of the airport. Many airport around the world have a similar setup with multiple terminals which are not connected to each other on the airside. At ARN one of the reasons is they want to keep SkyCity, and have huge plans for expanding office buildings etc. around the airport. They want SkyCity to be the place you go for lunch etc. for those office buildings.

Terminal 5 is used by *A and DY. It means you have SK as the major airlines + LH. LX, OS, etc. etc. etc. There is a shortage of gates at all the terminals at ARN.

You might be right. It's been a while since I last were in ARN. The gates 11-20 before the passport check used to be able to handle none Schengen arrivals, with arriving pax going to the upper level through the tower at the gate. But as far as I know it's not possible anymore and it doesn't really help either since over a day you normally have the same amount of birds arriving from none schengen as departure with a none schengen country as destination. Having a lower number of gates which can handle none schengen departures than gates which can handle none schengen arrivals don't make sense.

RedChili

Gates 11-16 are in the Schengen area. Gates 17-20 are in the non-Schengen area. But gates 13-16 have escalators up to the corridors on the fourth floor, where they mix with arriving passengers from gates 17-20. IIRC, non-Schengen arrivals on those gates are called 13C-16C. (On the A-pier, though, I seem to recall that the letter C is used for bus gates. E.g. gate 6A is a regular gate, while 6C is a bus gate.) So, when there's a non-Schengen arrival at gate 15, just close the regular entry door and lead passengers up the escalators. In that way, these four gates can be used for planes that arrive from outside of Schengen but depart inside Schengen.

ARN has charter widebody flights to a number of Mediterranean destinations, such as KGS, LCA, HER, PMI, AYT, DLM, LPA, TFN.

Oops! Sorry! TFS, not TFN.

RedChili

I didn't really forget the total number of gates, but I did write that increasing the number of widebody flights would mean more buses for narrowbody flights.

Theoretically, any gate or remote stand can be used for any flight, as long as you use buses. The wildest bus transportation that I've seen was once when a QR flight arrived at gate 7, and passengers were bused, since gate 7 can only handle Schengen.

While it's true that ARN has built some really fancy remote stands next to T2 (ramp E) within the last couple of years, they've always had lots of remote stands. As far as I can remember, I think 1998 was the first time I was bused to a flight at ARN. They are located on ramps G, H, J, K, M, R and S. In May 2017, flightspotters at ARN had a field day when the UEFA Europa League final was in Stockholm, and dozens of flights brought Manchester United and Ajax fans to ARN for the day. On that day, both narrowbodies and widebodies were parked all over these ramps, and passengers were bused to the terminals. Even I had to go out and get some shots on that day.

Here's a picture that I took of a Titan Airways 757, a Euro-Atlantic 738, and a Smartwings 738 arriving at ramp M with bus transportation to the terminal: