SAS released its February 2018 traffic figures

SAS Scandinavian Airlines released its latest statistics, the airline transported 2 million passengers during the month of February, the load factor decreased by 1.5 p.u. to 66,4%

Market and SAS development
The capacity in the Scandinavian market has accelerated during the autumn and winter 2017/2018 in line with SAS’s expectations. This trend is also expected to continue during the spring 2018.

During the winter program 2017/2018, SAS has adjusted the production according to the seasonally lower demand. This, in combination with last year’s 70 year’s anniversary campaign, has resulted in lower traffic volumes and higher yield than last year. This trend is expected to continue during the winter program 2017/2018. Thereafter, the volumes and load factors are expected to be more in line with FY17.

In fiscal year 2017/2018, SAS plans to increase capacity (ASK) by around 1–3%, driven by longer European routes and the fact that the Airbus A320neo has more seats than the aircraft being replaced.

SAS scheduled traffic development in February
SAS increased its scheduled capacity in February by 0.1% and the traffic decreased by 2.1%, resulting in a load factor of 66.4%, 1.5 p.u. lower than last year.

SAS’s intercontinental capacity decreased by 3.3% and the traffic decreased 6.7%. The volumes were negatively affected by the Chinese New Year and the phase out of one aircraft compared to last year.

The traffic on SAS’s European/Intrascandinavian routes increased by 1.9%. At the same time the capacity increased 3.3%. The traffic had a positive development on European leisure oriented routes where number of passengers increased by 10%.

On SAS’s domestic routes, the capacity decreased by 0.3%, primarily due to reduced capacity on Swedish domestic routes. The domestic traffic was down 2.2%.