SK in trouble -- what's UA's obligation to me?
 

All,

Looks like SAS is in some real financial trouble. I just booked a J award on SAS using UA miles for travel in September 2013. My destination is AMS, which is served wholly on UA metal from the USA.

If SAS goes belly up before my travel date, what is UA's obligation to me? Are they obligated to book me in J on their own metal, even if no saver space is available, or am I just due a refund of the SK portion of the itinerary? The return is on OS.

Thanks.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sas-cu...095209184.html

I don't get what your question is? You used UA miles & are flying to AMS on UA correct? So what does SAS have to do with your ticket

FYI. SAS is not going belly up any time soon. They are cutting flights & laying off people. Just like almost every airline has done in the past including UA

If you used UA miles for an SAS ticket & your SAS flight is cancelled, UA will rebook you on another *A carrier with award space available. If no award space is avail UA might open space for you on their own flights or offer you a refund

I realize now that my question wasn't totally clear... I'm booked on SK metal using UA miles.

When you say "offer me a refund" in the literal sense where I can decline that and force them to transport me in my ticketed class of service, or was that a nice way of saying that they will tell me where to stick it and I'm on my own?

They will open up space on United flights. This is easy since UA serves AMS.

You are worrying about nothing, and the flight is 10 months away. There will be a dozen schedule changes between now and then.

SK may eventually be bought by someone like LH, but they are not going to disappear by next September.

Sweet. We booked a 12 hour layover in CPH on purpose... I actually want to see a bit of the city. As a side note, we had to book this as part of an RT, as we have a stopover coming home. So I couldn't just book the return without booking the nonstop.

One thing that I find interesting here is that as part of the crisis plan for SAS, the executives are taking salary cuts ranging from 12 to 23% along with everyone else. If it was a US company, you know that the executives would be cutting everything before ever touching their own compensation...

future of SAS
 

The Scandinavian countries won't allow SAS to go bankrupt i.e. SAS is not MALEV, and Denmark is not Hungary!

while I agree this would be a likely response if needed, there is no requirement or standing policy to do this.

probably the most pertinent statement, time of lots of things to happen or not.

They should rebook, but I know the case of an award booking at last New Years' holiday, when LH downsized schedule eliminating a flight, where a 1K friend of mine had a C-award reservation on. UA claimed, there was no award space on alternate flights and offered to refund tickets & miles. It took multiple attempts to finally get alternate flights confirmed.

IMHO, OP is smart to look ahead and be proactive in case things over at SAS fall apart.

Are you sure? I thought the EU was preventing the governments from sticking more money in. If not, I am not so sure the Norwegian and Danish governments want to put more money into SAS. Last I heard, the Swedish, Norwegian* and Danish governments were asking the EU if they could guarantee the new loans in the case that SAS does go belly-up. That is much different that sticking money in to keep them afloat.

*Corrected statement from Finnish to Norwegian

Norwegian, rather. Finland has its own airline.

Not true at all. Plenty of stories of American CEO's taking huge salary cuts & even no salary when their companies are in trouble. Just not something done in the airline business (though there was a CEO that took a $1 salary when his airline went chap 11, I'll look that up & see who it was).

I can't find the link... but I *think*(only about 75% sure) it was AA's Arpey. I also seem to recall it was after 9/11 (rather then the recent BK, as he resigned pre-filing). It might have been reveald in a documentary on AA.

Gordon Bethune and Larry Kellner have all taken no salary before when CO lost money.

Their obligation is a full refund. You may get a rebooking on UA metal.

12 hours in CPH is not enough . . .

True, but I'm burning my stopover in VIE :)

+1 - This is the key anad the answer to OP's question. While the conventional wisdom is not to worry, his question is "what happens if...?"

As a matter of CS, UA will generally do what it can to acommodate. Here, where UA flies the route, it should be less of a problem. But, UA's sole obligation is to issue a refund. You can't force UA to do anything else and, in this example, SAS would not exist.

OP. You will be fine, an airline would never lie about financial health, arrival times....departure times.......where you bags are :D

SAS Says Cost-Reduction Program Won't Disrupt Flights
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...t-flights.html

Give it time, all EU carriers will be under IAG, Lufthansa Group, or Air France-KLM.

Last time I had an award ticket booked on a carrier that went under, the ticket-issuing airline got me on their own metal without any fuss -- even earned a good chunk of miles for the award ticket. The time before that, I go booked on another partner airline and earned miles on that too.

I wouldn't count on all the big 3 Scandinavian government shareholders of SAS keeping SAS out of bankruptcy. I would count on actually at least 2 of the Scandinavian countries letting SK go by its own devices without much if any governmental life preserver being thrown at SK.

Except for Ryanair or EasyJet. Although I could see WN buying Ryanair. (Or maybe the other way around.)