Scandinavian airline SAS suffers loss due to COVID-19 outbreak

The Scandinavian airline (SAS), on Tuesday said it recorded huge losses in the last quarter due to the collapse of air travel demand during the pandemic.
The airline said the number of passengers declined by 86 per cent in the quarter between May and July.
Total revenue declined by 81 per cent, from 13.4 billion Swedish krona (or 1.5 billion dollars) to 2.5 billion krona.
As a result, earnings before tax came in at minus 2.1 billion krona, compared to 1.5 billion krona in the same period in 2019.
The airline received 12 billion krona from shareholders to bolster its operations, but had to cut costs and let go of 5,000 employees, of whom 4,000 had already been made redundant.
According to SAS Chief Rickard Gustafson, although there are significant challenges ahead, it is expected that SAS will return as a sustainable and profitable airline following a successful implementation of the recapitalisation plan,” Gustafson said.
However, demand began rising slowly, especially in domestic travel and routes to European holiday destinations.
“Our current expectation is that the ramp-up phase for the airline industry may last until 2022 before demand can reach more normalised levels, with a return to pre-COVID-19 levels a few years thereafter,” Gustafson said.