SAS group sells sister airline Spanir

SAS group has finally managed to sell Spanish subsidiary airline Spanair.

The sale price will be a nominal €1 and the buyer is a consortium of Spanish businesses and public bodies as well as banks mostly from Catalonia.

SAS said it sold 80.1 percent of Spanair  but  will still be responsible for Spanair debts following the deal and will provide assistance for the transition and turnaround of the carrier.

‘In summary, the financial effects from Spanair’s 2008 result and this transaction on the SAS Group in 2008 will be a negative effect of 4.895 billion crowns reported as discontinued operations in the 2008 financial statements,’ SAS said. Of that total, 2.72 billion crowns was booked in the first three quarters of last year while 2.18 billion will be accounted for in the fourth-quarter results. The fourth-quarter charge consists of a 712 million crown capital loss, 907 million for one-off restructuring costs and an additional 560 million for Spanair losses in the quarter.

The consortium groups Catalana d’Iniciatives — a private equity group including some of Spain’s biggest banks and builders — with regional tourist authorities, a Barcelona exhibition centre and businessmen in local tourism.

SAS is to add an extra daily flight between Heathrow (LHR) and Copenhagen (CPH) during the summer.

The airline will operate seven flights a day to the Danish capital between March 30 and October 24.

The expansion of the Heathrow service compliments SAS’s existing twice daily link from London City Airport to Copenhagen. It will bring the airline’s services from London to Copenhagen to nearly 60 flights a week.

Uk and Ireland general manager Lars-Ove Filipson said: “We are delighted that SAS has been able to secure an additional slot from London Heathrow Airport.

“In recent years it has become increasingly difficult for airlines to add additional Heathrow routes to their networks, and so typically service expansion depends on the introduction of larger aircraft which SAS has also implemented on its services to Scandinavia.

“The addition of the new service now also takes the number of SAS flights out of London airports to Copenhagen to 50% more than our competitor BA.”

SAS operates a one-way fare structure allowing passengers to mix and match the airports they travel from. They can fly out from London City and return via Heathrow according to which airport is most convenient to their home or office.

Some 230 staff at the Swedish subsidiary of SAS will be given redundancy notices on Friday, mainly as a result the company’s decision to stop flying its accident-hit Dash Q-400 plane fleet.

Of those facing redundancy, “the number of cabin crew will be double the number of pilots,” said SAS Sverige spokesman Mikael Lindberg.

“The main reason is that we are no longer flying the Dash Q400 plane model, but we have also had excess numbers for a long period,” he said.

The airline’s decision to axe its Dash Q-400 fleet has led to 27 planes being grounded. The airline said it was not certain that all those issued with notices would lose their jobs.

“We will now try to find all possible solutions to avoid redundancies,” Lindberg said.

The redundancies are not linked to SAS’s recent cost-cutting plan, said Lindberg.

Representatives of the Cabin Crew Union at SAS say 150 members have been issued with redundancy notices.

“The redundancy notices are hitting hard and many people are now worried,” said Pelle Gustafsson Cabin Crew Union.

SAS has been dredging the market over the past month to find replacements for the grounded Dash fleet. In many cases the company has been forced to charter planes and crew from other airlines.