Scandinavian Airlines System

From Free net encyclopedia

Scandinavian Airlines System, now SAS AB, is an airline based in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a multi-national airline for Norway, Denmark and Sweden and is currently the leading carrier in the Nordic countries. It is also a founding member of the Star Alliance.

It operates out of three primary hubs, Stockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN), Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup (CPH) and Oslo Airport, Gardermoen (OSL).

1 History
2 Subsidiary Airlines
3 Destinations
4 Incidents and accidents
5 Fleet
6 See also
7 External links

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History

The airline was founded on 1 August 1946 when the flag carriers of Denmark, Sweden and Norway formed a partnership to handle intercontinental traffic to Scandinavia. Operations started on 17 September 1946. The companies then started coordination of European operations in 1948 and finally merged to form the current SAS Consortium in 1951. When established the airline was divided between SAS Danmark (28.6%), SAS Norge (28.6%) and SAS Sweden (42.8%), all owned 50% by private investors and 50% by their respective governments. SAS gradually acquired control of the domestic markets in all three countries by acquiring full or partial control of several local airlines. In May 1997 SAS formed the global Star Alliance network with Air Canada, Lufthansa, Thai Airways International and United Airlines. The ownership structure of SAS was changed in June 2001, with a holding company being created in which the holdings of the governments changed to: Sweden (21.4%), Norway (14.3%) and Denmark (14.3%) and the remaining 50% publicly held and traded on the stock market. It employs 9147 staff.

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Subsidiary Airlines

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Note that SAS airline is diveded into 4 operating airlines: SAS Danmark, SAS Sverige, SAS Braathens in Norway, and finally SAS International. SAS Braathens is the Norwegian part of SAS airline and is the result of the merge of Braathens and SAS Norge. The livery of SAS Braathens diverts a bit from the others by showing "Braathens" and the Norwegian flag on the fuselage.

SAS fully owns SAS Cargo and Blue1 in Finland. It also has stakes in Widerøe (99.6%) in Norway, Spanair (94.9%) in Spain, Estonian Air (49%), Air Baltic (47.2%) in Latvia, Air Greenland (37.5%), Aerolineas de Baleares (25%), Skyways Holdings (25%) and bmi (20%).

SAS helped set up Thai Airways International in 1960, taking a 30% share in the joint venture, but sold its last remaining stake in 1977.

On 30 March 2003, the Snowflake low-cost airline subsidiary started operations to provide services to destinations in southern Europe. It eventually evolved into a "fares brand", ceased separate operations in 2004 and all operations are now on SAS aircraft.

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Destinations

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Incidents and accidents

On December 27, 1991, SAS flight 751, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81, crashed at Gottröra, Sweden. On initial climb both engines ingested ice and subsequently stalled, leaving the aircraft with no propulsion. The aircraft made a forced landing in a field and broke in three parts. No fire broke out and all aboard the plane survived. The flight crew was praised for the fortunate outcome of the accident.

The worst SAS accident occurred in 2001 in Milan, Italy, when an MD-87 collided with a small Cessna jet during take-off and left 114 people dead. It has been established that the cause of the accident was a misunderstanding between air traffic controllers and the Cessna jet, and that the SAS crew had no role in causing the accident.

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