There are few airlines quite like Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), a company with a glorious history, legendary complexity, and now, a new lease on life. It has been a reclamation project for decades, but the time has come to sink or swim. I’m betting on “swim.”

SAS was formed in 1946 by bringing together airlines that were operating in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. This was formalized in 1948 with six different owners nested under three companies. SAS Sverige had 42.8 percent of the airline with SAS Danmark and SAS Norge each having 28.6 percent. Each of those companies were half owned by their respective governments with the other half owned by the private sector. This is all ancient history, but the point is to show that complexity was built into this airline from day one.

Flying around Scandinavia made SAS very proficient at all types of challenging flying, and it was an adventurous group, just like their ancestors the Vikings long before. SAS was the first airline to fly the trans-polar route in 1954 from Copenhagen to LA — a commemorative plaque sits outside the Flight Path Museum at LAX to this day — and in 1957 it was the first to fly around the world over the north pole.

This was the airline that bought into Continental (originally through Texas Air Corp in 1988), tried to merge with Austrian, KLM, and Swissair in the early 1990s, and was one of the founding members of the Star Alliance in 1997.

Did all of those work? Absolutely not. But this was an airline that liked to try new things and push its limits. At least, that was the case until this century. For too long, it’s just been a mess of an airline mired in labor issues and cost troubles with no clear direction.

In the early 2000s, like every airline, SAS was in trouble and need to restructure. In 2003, there were 39 unions on the property and each needed to negotiate changes. There were four pilot unions alone. There have been many restructurings since that point with shifting ownership percentages.

Operationally, SAS just kept trying to find ways to be like Norwegian… and by that, I mean adding complexity and offering fares that were way too low. It created SAS Ireland to fly out of Heathrow and Málaga, because costs were lower there. That eventually became SAS Connect and another SAS Link subsidiary was established. You’d think that with this constant changing of subsidiaries, Lufthansa Group would have been proud to buy into the airline. But that didn’t happen.Just take a look at this topsy-turvy operating airline structure over time.

SAS Marketing Carrier Departures by Operating Airline

Data via Cirium

The problem at SAS was that it had sunk from one of the leading airlines in Europe to a smaller airline that was not part of any of the big Transatlantic joint ventures. That has proven to be a dead end for many an airline. So, after filing for bankruptcy protection in a post-COVID haze, SAS came out in a good place. It was owned 19.9 percent by Air France-KLM with 26.4 percent owned by Denmark and the rest owned by a Danish investor and private equity. Air France-KLM is planning to grow that stake to 60.5 percent by buying out other investors later this year.

With all of this ownership drama out of the way, SAS could get a makeover to fit as a new third hub in the Air France-KLM network. Copenhagen would take center stage, where it should have been the whole time anyway. To prepare for this, it exited Star Alliance to join SkyTeam, added codesharing with new partners, and prepared to eventually join the Air France-KLM joint venture with Delta and Virgin Atlantic.

I wrote about some of the network changes back in 2024, but things have continued to progress. This may come as a shock, but I don’t want to get into the network stuff today. What I want to show is how SAS is ready for good things to happen.

I already talked about the issue of having so many operating airlines flying for the airline. It has now made things cleaner. Sort of. Here’s where things stand:

• Braathens Regional flies 15 ATR-72s out of both Copenhagen and Stockholm. These are short hops under 500 miles that feed the hubs.
• CityJet flies 16 CRJ-900s primarily out of Copenhagen but also from Stockholm. All flights are under 1,100 miles and feed the hubs.
• SAS Link flies 16 Embraer 195s (with orders for 45 E195-E2s) almost entirely from both Copenhagen and Oslo. Flights can go up to 1,500 miles, but those are long, thin routes.
• Jettime does wet-lease work for SAS when it needs to flex in summer, almost entirely from Copenhagen to the Mediterranean using its B737-800s.
• SAS Connect flies its 33 A320neos from all three hubs plus Göteborg throughout Europe. The Málaga base was closed, so now you can think of this like Iberia Express which looks no different to customers than SAS but flies with a lower cost structure, mostly — but not exclusively — on leisure routes down to the Mediterranean.
• SAS flies four A319ceos, three A320ceos, and 48 A320neos all throughout Europe. It is also the only airline that flies long-haul with three A321LRs, eight A330-300s, and six A350-900s.

Is this still complex? Yes, but there is at least some sort of rationale for having each of these operating airlines. It is a very European structure with the lower-cost mainline operation, the subsidiary to operate larger-than-regional aircraft, and the wet lease partner all being impossible in the US but par for the course in Europe.

But it’s also not just about operating airline. It’s about the fleet mix, which you can see has greatly simplified from where it had been in the past.

SAS Marketing Carrier Narrowbody Departures by Aircraft Type

Data via Cirium

Look at this mess. The MD-80s are long gone, and so are the Boeing narrowbodies (though, fun fact, there is still one B737-700 operating as an air ambulance). There are no Fokkers nor Saabs, BAe 146s/Avros, or Q400s around. Even the Airbus ceos are almost out of the fleet. This is a fleet plan that actually makes some sense. The Embraer 195s will be replaced by E2s, and then you’ll have a fleet built for the future.

All of this is to say that SAS is where Air France-KLM needs it to be. Once it gains majority ownership later this year and gets SAS into the joint venture, then you’ll have an airline that’s ready to finally show what it can do. It will never been the most simplified airline flying, but it is now manageable. It is just about time for SAS to show that it is worthy of continuing to exist.