Explainer: Why the survival of Scandinavian airline SAS hinges on Denmark

Swedish loss-making airline SAS is fighting for survival, the latest carrier to hit financial straits due to hefty debts, stiff competition and soaring costs, even as the travel industry recovers from the pandemic. SAS has said a restructuring plan announced in February depends on it raising 9.5b Swedish crowns ($946m) in cash and converting 20b crowns of debt to equity. Many governments across the world helped shore up their national carriers during the pandemic. But Sweden and Denmark, which both have 21.8% stakes in SAS, are taking very different approaches to the Scandinavian brand. Denmark has said it is willing to increase its ownership and write off debt, but Sweden has refused to inject more money. SAS, formally known as Scandinavian Airlines System Denmark – Norway – Sweden, is headquartered in Stockholm, but it uses Copenhagen Airport, the largest in Scandinavia, as its main hub. Denmark's Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen has said SAS is important for the Danish economy and ensuring good travel connections from the Nordic country to the rest of Europe as well as long-distance flights to other continents. SAS directly employs almost 7,000 people, equally shared between Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company underpinned 20,000 jobs in the Scandinavian region, 6,800 of those in Denmark, according to a 2019 report by Copenhagen Economics commissioned by SAS. SAS accounted for almost a third of direct and indirect flights to Denmark, according to the report. It also accounted for 82% of transfer air traffic at Copenhagen airport in 2017. To Danes, SAS has traditionally been linked to a sense of pride and even a collective sense of ownership as it evolved to become a leading premium carrier in the decades following its creation in 1946. Story has more.<br/>