SAS Scandinavian Airlines is to launch flights to San Francisco from April next year as it embarks on a network expansion in the US market. The new flight marks the return of the Scandinavian flag carrier to the US West Coast after an almost four year hiatus having previously served Los Angeles and Seattle from Copenhagen.
SAS will launch a six times weekly connection between Copenhagen and San Francisco on April 8, 2013 and this will be supplemented by additional flights on its existing route from the Danish capital to New York where a new three times weekly evening departure will be introduced from April 1, 2013. North America has always been an important market for SAS and over recent years a number of International and Nordic companies have expressed a strong desire for a direct service between the US West Coast and the Nordic countries.
The Scandinavian carrier has previously served both Los Angeles and Seattle on the US West Coast but both links were suspended during the past two decades due to external operational pressures. The Los Angeles route was stopped in April 1994 and while the Seattle service remained for another 15 years, it too was cut from July 2009.
"SAS is always looking to serve markets where there is high demand from Nordic Travelers. We see a favorable market situation in North America and a particularly strong demand in the growth area of San Francisco and the US West Coast. The new route will benefit business and leisure travelers, Nordic imports and exports and has been highly sought after by the business community," said Rickard Gustafson, Chief Executive Officer, SAS Group.
As a strategic hub of the US West Coast, San Francisco International Airport, will enable fast and efficient transfers to an extensive SAS partner route network on the US West Coast and the South Pacific area, including Hawaii, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle, Vancouver and Mexico City, while SAS also anticipates a notable demand from Scandinavia and the wider Northern European and Baltic region to the transatlantic service.
In 2011, an estimated 51,000 O&D passengers travelled between Copenhagen and San Francisco, all on indirect flight routings. SAS will stimulate this market further through the introduction of a non-stop schedule. When you consider the wider Danish market, the O&D demand to/from San Francisco increases to 62,000 passengers and when looking at the whole of Scandinavia the demand rises to 168,000.
According to SAS, a large number of passengers have expressed a strong desire for additional departures from Copenhagen to Newark Liberty International Airport and the return of its evening rotation will help support this demand and provide even greater travel flexibility for both business and leisure travellers. "We are pleased to be able to deliver new service in response to our customers' wishes," said Rickard Gustafson.
SAS launched daily flights between Copenhagen and Newark in June 1989 initially with Douglas DC-10s although from April 1990 the route was exclusively served with Boeing 767-300ERs. The second rotation was first introduced in April 1992 and was served on a mix of year-round and seasonal basis until September 2007. By this time SAS had upgraded the route to newer Airbus A330 and A340 models and had been joined by Continental Airlines (now United) on the route.
Currently, SAS operates non-stop services from Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm to New York, as well from both Copenhagen and Stockholm to Chicago, and Copenhagen to Washington DC. It will be the only airline to offer a non-stop service between Northern Europe and San Francisco and says it expects to handle approximately 125,000 passengers per year on the route.
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