Ask Scandinavian Airlines CEO Anko van der Werff about the carrier’s network strategy, and he’ll answer with a riddle.
“Someone’s on the North Pole and takes a step to the right, what direction are they traveling?” he quipped in an exclusive interview with TPG. “Everybody thinks it’s east but, of course, it’s south because when you’re at the literal North Pole and, well, everything is south.”
The same is true for SAS. With hubs at Copenhagen Airport (CPH) in Denmark, Oslo Airport (OSL) in Norway and Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN) in Sweden, everything for the airline is south.
That is why SAS is investing in its hub at CPH — its sole “global hub,” according to its most recent annual report — and expanding links with its new minority owner, the Air France-KLM Group, and its partners, including Delta Air Lines and Korean Air.
The result is something of a neo-Viking force. Since emerging from bankruptcy in 2024, SAS has unveiled numerous product improvements, from the return of business class on short-haul flights to high-speed inflight Wi-Fi from SpaceX’s Starlink. It has also added at least six new intercontinental routes to destinations like Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Seoul, South Korea’s Incheon International Airport (ICN) and ordered at least 45 new Embraer E195-E2 jets to support its growth in Europe.
“We can bring the north to the table,” van der Werff said. “We strengthen the Air France-KLM Group that way.”
The Paris-based group owns nearly a fifth of SAS today and is in the process of raising that stake to 60.5% by the end of 2026.
Joining Air France, KLM and Delta across the North Atlantic
“I’m wired towards joint ventures,” van der Werff said on SAS’s long-haul strategy.
That is not a surprise. Van der Werff was chief commercial officer at Aeromexico when the carrier implemented its joint venture with Delta in 2016, and before that, he held various roles at KLM, an airline whose involvement in a transatlantic joint venture dates to 1993 and Northwest Airlines, which has since been acquired by and assimilated into Delta in the 2000s. The immunized tie-ups allow airlines to coordinate everything from schedules and fares to share revenues and costs, plus jointly sell their partners’ flights.
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Integrating SAS into Air France and KLM’s transatlantic pact with Delta and Virgin Atlantic could greatly benefit the airline, allowing everything from expanding its sales reach to Delta’s massive loyalty base in the U.S. to feeding more travelers into its CPH hub. But while joining the joint venture is near the top of van der Werff’s to-do list, it is not something he can do alone.
“I think we should really start soon,” he said, noting that talks to include SAS in the joint venture have not begun.
“It’s something we all believe in, but, hey, regulatory approval processes, let’s see also when to proceed with that,” van der Werff continued.
Van der Werff’s comments come as competitors are already moving to expand their joint ventures. The Lufthansa Group in September applied to the U.S. Department of Transportation to include Italy’s ITA Airways in its transatlantic pact with Air Canada and United Airlines.
British Airways and Iberia owner International Airlines Group is eyeing an investment in TAP Air Portugal while also accelerating organic growth at its own airlines.
Air France and KLM, based on public statements, appear focused on increasing their ownership stake in SAS first before proceeding with commercial tie-ups.
“This new step would allow Air France-KLM and SAS to fully unlock their synergy potential via a comprehensive integration in all areas of business, including loyalty, and would extend beyond commercial activities,” the group said in July.
Copenhagen: Europe’s next big hub?
One of SAS’ weakest points has long been its three northern hubs serving 20-plus million people spread over a region larger than Texas. The result has been three undersized hubs and duplicative long-haul routes in an era when hub size and scale matter.
Van der Werff set about changing that since he took the helm of SAS in 2021.
Seats at CPH, the airline’s most southerly hub, are up 38% this year compared to 2023, when Air France and KLM announced their investment in SAS, according to schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. Seats at SAS’ other two hubs, ARN and OSL, are up 12% and down 2%, respectively.
SAS’s shift toward CPH is more dramatic for intercontinental flights. Excluding Europe, seats from CPH are up 30% compared to a 51% drop at ARN and a 2% drop at OSL, Cirium schedules show.
“Norway and Sweden [are] truly important and we are clearly developing our markets there but, if you start with the wide-bodies, it makes a lot of sense to centralize them in one central point and really start competing with the likes of Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam,” van der Werff said. “There’s a lot of traffic that’s being sucked out of our network and goes south.”
Despite the recent capacity shifts, SAS’ CPH hub remains much smaller than any of the competing hubs van der Werff mentioned. The airline is scheduled to fly 7.9 million seats from the Danish capital this year compared to 24.5 million on British Airways from London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) or 22.6 million on Air France from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), Cirium schedule data shows.
A larger CPH hub also suits Air France and KLM. The Dutch government wants to reduce the number of flights allowed at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS), the group’s second-largest hub by seats, in the name of noise. CPH could act as a growth valve for the group if flight numbers are cut at AMS.
No word yet from van der Werff on any new U.S. routes in 2026; he declined to comment on that topic. On the intercontinental front, SAS has announced new service to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM) in Mumbai, India, and Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) in Tel Aviv next year.
SAS ‘under-indexed’ on long-haul planes
One challenge SAS faces in growing its CPH hub is the availability of planes. The airline ordered up to 55 Embraer E195-E2 jets in July to grow its European network, but with just 15 intercontinental-capable aircraft, van der Werff described it as “under-indexed on long-haul aircraft.”
SAS’ long-haul fleet includes 12 twin-aisle planes — eight Airbus A330-300s and four Airbus A350-900s — and three Airbus A321LRs.
Business class on a SAS A330. MELANIE LIEBERMAN/THE POINTS GUY
The airline has orders for just two more A350s, with both due in 2026. After that, there are no more new wide-bodies coming.
“I would like to see a [campaign] with Boeing and Airbus on further development of our wide-body, long-haul fleet,” van der Werff said. “I don’t think we’ve maxed out yet.”
Getting more twin-aisle planes could be tough. The backlog for wide-bodies at the major planemakers, Airbus and Boeing, stretches into the 2030s, leaving airlines without existing orders with limited options.
Aengus Kelly, CEO of the world’s largest aircraft leasing company AerCap, on Wednesday described the market for new wide-bodies as “extremely acute” in terms of demand outstripping supply.
SAS could potentially tap into the Air France and KLM orderbook once it is a more integrated part of the group. Air France and KLM together had orders for 53 Airbus A350s and three Boeing 787s at the end of June, its latest fleet plan shows.
As for the popular long-range, single-aisle Airbus A321XLR, van der Werff said he does not see the plane as doing much more for SAS than the A321LR.
To keep EuroBonus or join Flying Blue
One question nagging SAS loyalists (and really anyone in the points and miles world) is the future of the carrier’s loyalty program, EuroBonus. The program has 8.5 million members and deep ties in Scandinavia, including with the region’s largest hotel operator, Scandic.
Van der Werff was clear that no changes to EuroBonus are imminent. SAS needs European Commission approval of Air France and KLM’s majority investment in the airline before any talk of integration with the group’s Flying Blue loyalty program can begin.
“Where I’m thinking, a name change at some point where the loyalty and the loyalty points, and all the tier benefits and everything else, stays with us and stays the same, but maybe there’s a name change and through which you could draw maybe all sorts of other synergies and be part of better deals as part of the family. I think we should explore that,” he said.
Until then, SAS plans to keep doing what it’s doing. That means growing at CPH, including with 40% more seats this winter than last, continuing to woo premium flyers by improving its product, from the food to the Wi-Fi, and building on the ties it is forging with Air France, KLM and their partners.
But one thing will not change at SAS, no matter who owns a controlling share or what joint venture the airline is in.
“We are Scandinavian,” van der Werff said.
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