Delta Air Lines said it had opened an investigation after the pilot of a flight that landed in Paris on Wednesday announced that the police were boarding his plane because it was carrying an extra passenger. A representative for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said on Wednesday that a person went through security screening but avoided identity and boarding pass checks before boarding a flight that left the United States. Without identifying the flight, the representative referred questions to the police at Charles de Gaulle Airport, which serves Paris. In a statement, Delta said that it was working with law enforcement and aviation authorities to investigate Flight 264, the plane that was boarded in Paris. The flight departed Kennedy International Airport in New York on Tuesday night, landing at Charles de Gaulle the next day, according to flight trackers. Delta did not provide further details on what it was investigating. The airport authorities in Paris said that they could not share information about the extra passenger. Another passenger on Flight 264, Rob Jackson, said that he had been traveling to meet friends in France. The flight felt completely normal, he said, until the aircraft began descending into Paris, and he could hear the flight attendants’ intercoms going off repeatedly. “I fly a lot, and it was unusual for that to be happening just as we were landing,” Jackson said. When the plane arrived at the gate, the seatbelt signs remained on for longer than usual, he added. After the crew’s routine announcements welcoming the passengers to Paris, the captain shared some unexpected news. “We’re just waiting for the police to come on board,” the captain can be heard saying in a video that Jackson recorded on the plane. “They’ve directed us to keep everyone on the airplane until we sort out an extra passenger that’s on the plane.” Story has details.<br/>
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Three months after exiting a bruising bankruptcy-protection plan, SAS AB wants to play a role in European airline consolidation by pitching itself to part-owner Air France-KLM as an attractive conduit to well-heeled Scandinavian travelers. The airline is already back to about 95% of corporate travelers compared with pre-pandemic levels, a ratio that will return fully next year, CEO Anko van der Werff said in an interview. SAS is putting a focus on its premium credentials with Copenhagen as its primary hub and will reintroduce business class on its intra-Europe services featuring hot meals and blocked out middle seats, he said. “The trigger is with the owners, not with me, but I would really like to be a part of that consolidation,” Van der Werff said in an interview at SAS’s headquarters on the outskirts of Stockholm this month. “It’s definitely a path that I’ll explore deeply.” SAS went through a two-year reorganization process after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, during which Air France-KLM swooped in to take a 19.9% stake. The Franco-Dutch carrier has an option to raise its holding to become a controlling shareholder after at least two years. Van der Werff said Europe must catch up on consolidating a still splintered aviation industry, saying that the region is far behind the US, where only about a handful of players dominate the air travel market. Besides its renewed focus on lucrative business travel, SAS also offers a strong Nordic market position with attractive landing slots and about 8m loyalty-card members — assets that go well beyond anything Air France-KLM could easily build in the region by itself, according to Van der Werff. With its current stake, Air France-KLM is a de-facto competitor, and there’s no room to align on pricing, capacity or network, the CEO added. <br/>
SkyTeam alliance carrier SAS is to open services to the Korean capital Seoul next year, operating from its Copenhagen base. Seoul is the hub of Korean Air, one of SAS’s new SkyTeam partner airlines. SAS says the route will be the first ever regular service between Scandinavia and Korea, operating four-times weekly from 12 September before reducing to thrice-weekly in the winter. The connection will bring to 14 the number of intercontinental destinations that SAS serves from Copenhagen. “This route further strengthens the seamless connectivity we provide, linking Scandinavia to key destinations across the globe,” says CE Anko van der Werff.<br/>