SAS roars to life in Aarhus – opens 3 new hub connections

Aarhus, Denmark welcomed the opening of a new base by Scandinavian Airlines on Monday 9th April as SAS Vice President Public Affairs – Lars Andersen and the Airline’s Head of Sales in Denmark – Michael Hansen cut the ribbon on 4 new daily services bridging Scandinavia’s fifth largest metropolitan area with 3 new Star Alliance hubs.

SAS commenced its raft of new services – the airline’s 4th, 5th and 6th routes from Aarhus – with a newly assigned 90-seater CRJ-900 aircraft flying up to double-daily between Aarhus and Oslo, a new daily link with Munich and a daily operation to Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.  The carrier’s 7th new service, to Nice Cote d’Azur, takes off from Saturday, also operated by the CRJ-900.  

“This is a significant step for our airport and for the city”, commented David Surley, Aarhus’ head of airline relations, “it is the first time that all 3 Scandinavian hubs have been directly connected with Aarhus by a major hub operator and carves a milestone in SAS’ determination to be the airline of choice for mainland Danish travellers.  It is also the first time SAS have bridged a non-Scandinavian hub with mainland Denmark and the new daily Munich service provides exceptional connectivity southwards into Europe, south-east and -west, where about 30 additional points like Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Trieste and even Johannesburg are linked with Aarhus and SAS services via Star Alliance connectivity”.

Munich is the first scheduled airline destination in Germany serviced from Aarhus, which has been the city’s fastest growing major inbound tourism market.  easyJet will open service between Berlin Tegel and Aarhus in September – the carrier’s first expansion in mainland Denmark which is home to around half the Danish population.   

"SAS capacity growth here in Aarhus is literally enormous”, remarked Surley, “going from a single route to eight is quite remarkable and the 3 new hub connections sit very well alongside the exciting new A320 flown leisure routes to Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Split, as well as our first French service to Nice and around 20% more frequency on Copenhagen.  International capacity is up well over 100% year on year, this is an exceptional investment by SAS and truly sharpens international connectivity to and from one of Scandinavia’s largest and fastest growing cities”.

SAS serves approximately 20 Norwegian destinations via Oslo, approximately 20 points in Sweden and Finland via Stockholm Arlanda and offers extensive codeshare and Star Alliance reach via Munich, as well as via Copenhagen.

In the first quarter of 2018, Aarhus Airport recorded a 37% increase in international passenger numbers and a 9% increase in total traffic ahead of the SAS expansion.  Increased capacity including that by Ryanair, Czech Airlines, new easyJet services and more charter flight customers in 2018 will significantly increase forward traffic volumes.  “We are on the up”, said airport CEO - Peter Høgsberg, ”our region’s economy is in accelerated growth and so are we”.