Scandinavian airline SAS said Friday it suffered at least 66 million euros in losses owing to a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that grounded planes across Europe last month.
“SAS estimates the negative impact on earnings up until May 7 to be between 650 and 700 million Swedish kronor (66.4 and 71.4 million euros, or 84.9 and 91.4 million dollars),” the company said in a statement. It added the estimate included lost booking up to May 7, additional costs for alternative transportation, and reimbursement to customers.
“In addition to the damage inflicted to our passengers, the aviation industry lost more than 25 billion Swedish kroner (2.5 billion euros, 3.3 billion dollars),” SAS chief executive Mats Jansson stressed in the statement.
He said SAS would, along with the industry, continue to work for compensation from EU and Scandinavian governments “based on a model that avoids distortion of competition,” as the “natural disaster” was not covered by airline industry insurance.
SAS, whose main market is Northern Europe — which was particularly affected by the ash cloud and resulting airspace closure — estimated it has lost more than 600,000 passengers because of the chaos. It added its operations gradually returned to normal on April 20 after being halted from April 15 to 19, but that booking in May and June had been affected.
The airline said it had carried some 1.6 million passengers in April compared to 2.2 million in April 2009, which indicated a “small underlying passenger increase,” after the volcano’s effect was taken into account.
Stockholm, May 7, 2010 (AFP)
