The SAS management has decided to turn the clock back 60 years, and once again establish a national company in each of the three Scandinavian countries, according to a report on TV2’s Nettavisen.
An internal group in SAS is reportedly working with the task to establish three national companies in Norway, Sweden and Denmark – similar to the old time in the 1940s when SAS consisted of three companies which existed almost independently of each other before they were combined, with the administration placed in Stockholm, Sweden.
According to Nettavisen, if the proposal for this move is approved by the SAS board at the meeting on March 10, the SAS managements in the three countries will be responsible for their own planes and staff. This is expected to help streamline SAS organization to better compete with discount fare companies that have routes in Norway and Sweden, as well as to ease completion of the planned merger between SAS and Braathens in Norway.
“We have in Norway and Sweden an incredible strong focus on handling the very hard competition on the most important national routes, and we are therefore building the new national companies around this traffic,” Jørgen Lindegaard, SAS administrative director, was quoted commenting. “Furthermore, it requires that the Europe traffic from Oslo and Stockholm is handled on the same low price level.”
The SAS management decided in the beginning of February that the businesses to Braathens and SAS in Norway were going to be joined into one company. An estimated 200 to 300 people will loose their jobs as a result of the change.
The SAS management has not yet reported if the new company will use the SAS or Braathens logo.
