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SAS beginning to compete better with low cost airliners as intense competition put pressure on prices.

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Airliner SAS claims that it can compete better against low-cost carriers on several destinations, according to Swedish Flight Price Index.

According to the index, which shows airfares from a measurement of a number of Swedish and Danish airports to ten destinations in Europe, SAS is reported to have emerged one of the cheapest on seven of the 29 routes, writes the website Flygtorget, which deals with fight related news.

Flygtorget writes that routes and prices that were previously dominated by low cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair has seen SAS performing impressively in them. SAS can now hold its ground there in terms of cost of the ticket, according to a new survey, which Flygtorget analysed.

Previously, airliners such as Ryanair, Easyjet and Norwegian have been cheaper than SAS, but now SAS is reported to have made itself also cheaper and competitive periods on price on some routes.

According to Ole Stouby, publisher of the Swedish Price Index, it indicates that SAS has managed to reduce overhead costs by using new flights and competitive contracts. "It will ultimately benefit consumers," he said to Flygtorget.

Some customers who have regularly flown with both companies and compare their services as indicated on the survey have given their own verdicts. They point out that Norwegian is better with more non-payment services such as "free" wifi in most of its aircraft. But still the wifi works poorly - slow and weak signal.

SAS's greatest advantage is the convenience of the journey and far better schedules. Price difference is not as shown but the full price could be very scary as indicated in the survey. That Norwegian is cheaper is not correct according to the some passengers who have flown regularly with both airliners.

"We see a tremendous development. Arlanda has been little brother compared to Copenhagen, but unjustly., we are the largest market in Scandinavia, with the largest office, the best economy and the main tourist flows., we feel that we are worthy of this traffic, "said Michael Persson Gripkow, Marketing Director at Arlanda, to Swedish news agency TT.

According to the Travel Markets CEO Ole Stouby there has been increased competition on intercontinental routes in Denmark which has led to price pressure, particularly since airlines from the Gulf countries started direct flights from Kastrup. He believes the same thing is waiting to happen in Sweden.

"The competition is tough and it forces even the big traditional airlines as KLM and Lufthansa to lower their prices on intercontinental flights. Clearly it means cheaper prices for consumers, "he says.

The intercontinental traffic from the airport is expected to increase by over 20 percent for the full year 2013. Nevertheless, towards the end of the year, from October to December, it is expected a huge increase - plus 45 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to Michael Persson Gripkow at Arlanda airport in Stockholm.

by Scancomark.com Team

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