As a Swede, the failure is entirely a function of bad strategies and bad decisions. Let's look at the specifics:
1. Cutting down almost all intercontinental traffic and concentrating on Europe just when the downturn came, meant they got hammered by the low costs. They should have done the exact opposite.
2. Having a hub in Copenhagen and funneling almost all traffic through there. People fly direct when they can, and especially the Far East services should have been kept in Stockholm - Sweden is the industrial center of Scandinavia, not Denmark. People stayed away in droves, as Sam Goldwyn used to say.
3. Old planes, unhappy staff.
4. The whole notion that a trinity of Norway, Sweden and Denmark should share an airline and then not expect infighting and and angling for positions is nuts.
Honestly, the best thing that can happen SAS is if it goes bankrupt and the carcass is sold out. It's been propped up and subsidised long enough on the tax payers check. Norwegian and Wideröe can fill the Norwegian gap. Denmark and Sweden would have to come up with new airlines, which is good. Start anew, fresh, with new planes and a new approach.
For me as a Swede living abroad, I'd like them to get back to their 60's ethos when they were truly a global airline. Get back to the crisp, clean minimalism that served the world successfully up until the early 90's. I want to see the new SAS buy 787's or 350's and see lines from Stockholm serving San Francisco, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Bangkok etc again like they did in the 60's. Unbelievably, SAS used to have no less than 29 DC-8's serving intercontinental lines, 10 747's etc back in the days. How the times have changed.
Last edited by AdamFrisch; 18th Nov 2012 at 18:41.