SAS Group's December 2012 traffic figures
• SAS Group carried 1.8 million passengers in December, down 2.6%, reflecting different holiday pattern.
• SAS Group’s capacity (ASK) was up by 3% and the Group’s traffic (RPK) increased by 2.4%.
• The SAS Group’s load factor decreased by 0.5 p.u. to 69.5%.
Group market trends, RASK and yield development
Traffic growth continued to be positive during December, but did not fully match additional capacity. Intercontinental and certain European continued to grow well.
Currency adjusted yield (Scandinavian Airlines) in November was down 0.1% versus previous year and RASK was up 0.3%. For December 2012 the yield (change vs last year) is expected to be positive while the RASK will be slightly negative due to the different holiday pattern.
The response to market campaigns is good and forward booking levels continue to be well above last year’s level. Overall, the market demand continues to be good, but remains unpredictable due to risk in the global economy. This adds uncertainty to the yield and RASK outlook going forward. The capacity increase for the 2012/13 financial year is expected to be approximately 5-6%.
SAS Group product and news update
• In December SAS activated the first aircraft in northern Europe with GSM. This enables SAS to provide Voice, SMS and GPRS during the flight. SAS will roll-out this service on all aircraft with WiFi onboard early 2013.
• Early 2013, SAS launched a major sales campaign of 1 million tickets for travelling between Feb-Sep 2013.
• MD80 was phased out of SAS fleet in Sweden before the end of 2012.
Scandinavian Airlines traffic development
• Number of passengers decreased by 3.9% to 1.6 million reflecting capacity reductions on mostly domestic routes.
• Traffic increased by 2.1% and capacity was up 2.8%.
• The load factor was down 0.5 p.u. to 70.1%.
Scandinavian Airlines adjusted its traffic program in December as the number of business days was lower than last year due to the timing of the holidays. This primarily resulted in adjustments of the capacity on shorter routes, which contributed to the overall decline in passenger numbers. Traffic on intercontinental routes increased 8.2% in line with the capacity increase. The European/intrascandinavian traffic increased by 1.6% but the traffic did not entirely match the capacity increase of 2.4%. Due to the adjustments of the traffic program the domestic traffic decreased 6.8%. However, excluding Finnish domestic routes, the traffic was down 2.9%.
Widerøe traffic development
Widerøe carried 203,000 passengers in December, up 9.2%., driven by increased capacity of 8.4%. During December Widerøe returned to Røros which contributed to the growth. The growth in passengers resulted in a total load factor of 55,5%, up 0,6 p.u. compared to last year.
Punctuality* December 2012
SAS: 84.1% Widerøe: 84.4%
Regularity December 2012
SAS: 97.2% Widerøe: 96.2%
