It’s time for a new SAS! The airline have been struggling financially for a long time. In July 2022 the company searched and was granted protection under chapter 11. Basically this means that SAS got time to find new financier and to renegotiate their loans. The process is described in the pdf below and is a part of a program called SAS Forward that will save the airline.
New Investors to the new SAS
And two days ago SAS announced that a big and import step was cleared. They have now found investors who will invest 1 175 million USD. For us as passengers this is good news. But among the investors we find AirFrance/KLM who are member of Skyteam while SAS today is member of the StarAlliance. SAS have already announced that they will change to SkyTeam in the future.
While there is still a lot of questions about the customer program Eurobonus we can be sure that it will continue to exist a loyalty based program even in the future. All full service airlines are a member in one of three big airline alliances. As an example SAS is today member of Star Alliance where the Lufthansa group is the dominant member in Europe with airlines as Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrain and Brussel Airlines. But with Air France and KLM as their new owner this will change to Skyteam
So what is Skyteam
Skyteam is just like Star Alliance an alliance of airlines. Skyteam consist of 19 different airlines after they suspended Aeroflot. Among the member airlines we can today see Air France, KLM, Vietnam Airlines, Aeromexico and Saudia. So even if we cant earn point at the Lufthansa Group anymore there will be a lot of airlines where we can. But I think that the biggest impact would be that we need to change our big European hubs. In the future with the new SAS belonging to Skyteam we will be used to transfer thrue Amsterdam and Paris. Does it make some difference? Well, maybe some lounges is worse on the other other hand some is better. So it will level out. Some people says that the airlines in Skyteam aint so great. But I have been reading a lot of good reviews about al of them. An important question is maybe the price and amount of bonus seats that will be available.
Final thoughts about the new SAS
But most of al Im happy that the new SAS have found investors who belive in the airline and are will to give it a go. Scandinavia needs an regional airlines that serve the nordic countries and SAS have done it well. If I transfer on one airport or another don’t matter so much for me. What matters is that we have an airline that continue to take us out to the world.
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