Dear Friends – it’s been a while since there was any news from the Scandinavian airline scene, so here is a summary of what’s happened during the last few months…
SAS
# The MD-90 fleet will be retired by the end of the winter timetable period. They are currently operating out of Copenhagen. Rumours say SE-DMH will be transferred to charter operator Nordic Leisure who intends to operate it out of Palma de Mallorca, but there are no official records of this so far.
# Three SAS 737-800s were involved in evacuation flights from Bangkok and Phuket to Scandinavia in late December, as well as MD-80s and A330/A340s. One of the 737s wore the Snowflake livery, as can be seen on the photos on this page by SAS Flight Operations.
# The first ex-Braathens 737-500 repainted in new SASBraathens livery was recently unveiled. The livery is similar to that of SAS, but with the SASBraathens logo on the fuselage and a Norwegian flag on the aft fuselage.
# From March 2005, the entire SAS A330/A340 fleet will offer wireless internet for all passengers. The system is Connexion by Boeing and the rates are $29.95 for internet access during the whole flight, or $9.95 for 30 minutes.
# SAS Flight Academy will open a new training centre in Riga, Latvia, during 2005 to supply AirBaltic and other operators in Eastern Europe with 737 training. A 737-3/4/500 full flight simulator will be placed at the new SASFA centre at Riga airport.
# On 27 March, two new routes from Stockholm to Split and Malta will be inaugurated. Malta will get a weekly flight while Split will get two flights per week.
# The rumour mill speaks of a return of the 767 and inauguration of the 757 on thinner long-haul routes… Only time will tell if these rumours come to fruition… SAS currently leases a 767 from United for its Copenhagen-Washington route.
# Finnair’s low-cost Swedish subsidiary FlyNordic, formerly Nordic Airlink, is opening several new routes in the end of March. New MD-80 services from Stockholm to Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Kiruna, Munich, Nice and Tallinn will premiere as will a new route from Copenhagen to Tallinn. This is the biggest expansion so far for FlyNordic who currently operates domestic flights in Sweden as well as a shuttle to Oslo in competition with SAS and Norwegian Air Shuttle. Their fleet consists of five MD-82 and three MD-83.
Nordic Regional/Nordic Leisure
# Nordic Regional (operating as Nordic Leisure) has expanded its fleet with an MD-87. The aircraft will be used on charter services when it’s not operating on behalf of FlyMe on their new Stockholm-Östersund route. Nordic Regional currently operates a Saab 340 on domestic services within northern Sweden, whereas Nordic Leisure uses one MD-81 and one MD-83.
# Rumours claim that Nordic Leisure will lease former SAS MD-90 SE-DMH for operations out of Palma de Mallorca starting 15 April.
# CityAirline will open a new route on 31 January from its home base at Gothenburg to Zurich using the Embraer 145. The airline is currently flying to Birmingham, Helsinki, Manchester and Milan. The fleet is made up by one ERJ-145 and three ERJ-135.
# Transwede Airways, known in the 80s and early 90s as an MD-80 charter operator, will return to the skies in March using an Avro RJ70. Transwede is owned by Malmö Aviation and will operate ad-hoc charters from its home base at Gothenburg. Transwede was split in two in the 90s, the leisure operations with MD-80 and B757 becoming Transwede Leisure (later Blue Scandinavia, today Britannia Airways Nordic) and the scheduled Fokker 100 operations were integrated in Braathens Malmö Aviation.
# Saab 340 operations will cease due to poor profitability. Skyways currently operates seven Saabs and 17 Fokker 50s. The technical base at Linköping will be shut down, and there will be layoffs of pilots and technical staff. The Saab aircraft might be taken up by other Swedish operators.
# Low-cost operator FlyMe is opening two new routes from Stockholm to northern Sweden on 14 February. Östersund and Sundsvall will each get a daily rotation with MD-87 and B737-300 respectively. FlyMe currently operates four 737-300s on flights from Stockholm to Helsinki, Gothenburg, Malmö and Ängelholm, all in direct competition with SAS and others.
# SweFly, until now a domestic Fokker 50 operator, will start B767-200 operations from Stockholm/Skavsta to Lahore, Pakistan, possibly in March. The airline has yet to receive clearance from the Pakistani authorities to inaugurate flights.
That’s that for this time. Hope you enjoyed! 😀
By: kevinwm - 15th June 2005 at 13:06
I wonder if we might see some of the Skyways SAAB 340 over here in Scotland,as Loganair are expanding thier Saab fleet
By: KabirT - 15th June 2005 at 12:48
why revive a January 2005 thread? :confused:
By: MD-80 - 15th June 2005 at 11:19
Member “EGNM” ist right in claiming that “SAS have recently had one of the most interesting short haul fleets in the world, operating A321, B736 and MD80/90 series simultainiously”.
But this is a huge problem at SAS and looking at the flight ops at SAS today it´s operationally not very wise to operate so many types of aircraft.
It´s no longer the “old” SAS managed by Jan Carlzon. SAS once operated a very streamlined fleet mainly based on the DC-9 and MD-80.
The younger management at SAS changed so much and now the CEO left and works now for another airline which also now has a very diversified fleet-structure.
SAS seems to be not very happy with their B737-600. In 2001 there were indications by SAS to phase out all B737-600´s. This is purely a fatal blow by the launch-costumer of this variant.
Maybe SAS did a huge “mistake” when ordering the B737-600.
McDonnell Douglas shaped their MD-95 around the requirements of SAS (these topic could fill many pages). The MD-95 (B717) offers the qualities of the MD-series but Boeing was not willing to enhance the sales of the B717 (this could fill a book).
The MD-95 was perfectly suited for SAS as a replacement for their DC-9´s and to supplement their MD-80´s and MD-90´s.
The “old” SAS (with eurowhite-livery) was a successful time and now?
SAS made so many things that were unlogical and forced the build-up of a “flying show”. It´s simply uneconomical to operate B737-600´s and A319´s.
Thank you!
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January 29, 2005 at 1:32 am