Continued strict travel restrictions, but Easter holidays lead to an increase in travel during March.
In March 310,000 passengers flew with SAS, an increase of about 40% compared with February, but almost 70% lower than the same month last year. The increased demand led to an improvement in the load factor compared with February by 5 percentage points to 31%. The load factor continues to be generally higher on SAS’ Scandinavian and European traffic and amounted to 44% in March, which is an improvement of 2 percentage points compared with February.
“The number of passengers and future bookings has increased during the month, but from very low levels. The development of the demand for air travel is entirely dependent on ongoing vaccinations and travel restrictions can be eased and coordinated between countries and regions. Although the market for the aviation industry remains challenging, we succeeded in securing favourable financing agreements for future deliveries of aircraft from Airbus during the month. The new aircraft take us toward a unified fleet with significantly lower fuel consumption and emissions,” says Rickard Gustafson, CEO of SAS.
| SAS scheduled traffic | Mar21 | Change1 | Nov20- Mar21 | Change1 |
| ASK (Mill.) | 865 | -62,2% | 4 285 | -74,0% |
| RPK (Mill.) | 266 | -76,1% | 1 243 | -88,4% |
| Passenger load factor | 30,8% | -17,9 p u | 29,0% | -36,0 p u |
| No. of passengers (000) | 313 | -68,6% | 1,536 | -83,2% |
| Geographical development, schedule | Mar21 vs. Mar20 | Nov20- Mar21 vs. Nov19-Mar20 | ||
| RPK | ASK | RPK | ASK | |
| Intercontinental | -92,3% | -50,3% | -96,3% | -75,8% |
| Europe/Intrascandinavia | -82,8% | -81,6% | -90,9% | -84,8% |
| Domestic | -41,6% | -36,8% | -67,6% | -46,0% |
| SAS charter traffic | Mar21 | Change1 | Nov20- Mar21 | Change1 |
| ASK (Mill.) | 6 | -94,7% | 32 | -96,1% |
| RPK (Mill.) | 2 | -96,9% | 12 | -98,3% |
| Load factor | 40,8% | -30,6 p u | 38,6% | -50,7 p u |
| No. of passengers (000) | 1 | -97,6% | 3 | -98,6% |
| SAS total traffic (scheduled and charter) | Mar21 | Change1 | Nov20- Mar21 | Change1 |
| ASK (Mill.) | 870 | -63,6% | 4 317 | -75,0% |
| RPK (Mill.) | 268 | -77,4% | 1 256 | -89,0% |
| Load factor | 30,8% | -18,8 p u | 29,1% | -37,1 p u |
| No. of passengers (000) | 313 | -69,3% | 1,539 | -83,6% |
1 Change compared to same period last year. p u = percentage units
| Preliminary yield and PASK | Mar21 | Nominal change | FX adjusted change |
| Yield, SEK | 1.29 | 26.7% | 32.7% |
| PASK, SEK | 0.40 | -19.9% | -16.1% |
| Mar21 | |||
| Punctuality (arrival 15 min) | 90.8% | ||
| Regularity | 99.4% | ||
| Change in total CO2 emissions, rolling 12 months | -81.1% | ||
| Change in CO2 emissions per available seat kilometre | -9.3% | ||
| Carbon offsetting of passenger related emissions | 47% |
Definitions:
RPK – Revenue passenger kilometres
ASK – Available seat kilometres
Load factor – RPK/ASK
Yield – Passenger revenues/RPK (scheduled)
PASK – Passenger revenues/ASK (scheduled)
Change in CO2 emissions per available seat kilometres – SAS passenger related carbon emissions divided with total available seat kilometres (incl. non-revenue and EuroBonus), rolling 12 months
Carbon offsetting of passenger related emissions – Share of SAS passenger related carbon emissions compensated by SAS (EuroBonus members, youth tickets and SAS’ staff travel)
From fiscal year 2020 we report change in CO2 emissions in total and per Available Seat Kilometers (ASK) to align with our overall goal to reduce our total CO2 emissions by 25% by 2025, compared to 2005.