SAS sees earnings rise in June amid market challenges
Scandinavian airline SAS experienced increased earnings in June, a typically busy month, recording a profit of 664 million Swedish kronor (approximately 422 million Danish kroner). Despite this improvement, the first profitable month of the year was May, with earnings of 377 million Swedish kronor. From November 2022 to June 2023, SAS still faced a loss of almost 3.4 billion Swedish kronor (over 2.1 billion Danish kroner). Jacob Pedersen from Sydbank stresses that for SAS to hope for annual profits, it needs to exit bankruptcy protection for new cost-saving agreements to take effect. Challenges persist as consumer price sensitivity increases, and competitors have difficulty passing higher costs to passengers. Additionally, SAS’s upcoming owner, a consortium including Air France-KLM, announced new savings and a hiring freeze. SAS entered chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in mid-2022 and has received approval for its recovery plan.