Scandinavian airline SAS to cut 1,500 jobs

August 12, 2009

SAS CEO Mats Jansson.

Scandinavian airline SAS, with CEO Mats Jansson, will launch an entirely new cost program and lay off 1,500 employees in a move to curb swelling losses.

SAS Group, half-owned by Sweden, Norway and Denmark, said it will cut more jobs, reduce salaries and slash other expenses after reporting its seventh uninterrupted quarterly net loss.

The second-quarter net loss amounted to 1.05 billion kronor (€102 million, $143 million), compared to a loss of 422 million kronor a year ago. The result was slightly better than analysts’ expectations – a survey by Reuters had forcast a loss of 1.1 billion kronor.

“The numbers are poor, but not as poor as I had feared”, said Jacob Pedersen, senior aviation analyst at Danish Sydbank, to The Swedish Wire. “It’s clearly better earnings than expected”.

To curb swelling losses the airline will launch an entirely new cost program amounting to 2 billion kronor, which is in addition to the total savings measures under Core SAS of 4.5 billion kronor. These cut downs will entail further reductions corresponding to 1,000-1,500 employees.