Sas Analysis
I. Introduction
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has received greatly attention in the media in recent times partly due to the poor financial performance in the past years. The purpose of this paper is to analysis the corporate governance model of the company SAS, and identify the key corporate issues that may be behind the bad performance that the company is undergoing. The airline industry is especially sensible to business cycles and the financial crisis bit it hard. That is why in order to develop a fair analysis I will benchmark the company with its most relevant competitors, the German Lufthansa and the French Air France KLM. It can be argued that Norwegian Airline is the main rival. However its business model is different oriented. That is why I will not include this last one in the analysis.
To present these ideas the rest of the paper proceeds as follows. After a brief presentation of the company, section III will discuss the strategies followed by SAS in the last couple of years. Section IV and V will analyse in deep the corporate governance model of the company and its bond to the general Scandinavian model. Section VI will benchmark the financial results to the competition. The paper will close with a layout of the main findings.
II. Overview of the company
Based in Stockholm, Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) is the national airline of three Scandinavian States: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The airline has 136 aircraft in service and operates to 90 destinations within Scandinavia, Europe, Asia and North America. SAS’ main hub is Kastrup or Copenhagen Airport, which is the main European and intercontinental hub. Somewhat smaller hubs also exist at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen and Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.
The conglomerate was founded in 1951 as a merger between the three Scandinavian flag carriers Aerotransport (ABA), Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) and Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL), after the three had been cooperating on international routes
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has received greatly attention in the media in recent times partly due to the poor financial performance in the past years. The purpose of this paper is to analysis the corporate governance model of the company SAS, and identify the key corporate issues that may be behind the bad performance that the company is undergoing. The airline industry is especially sensible to business cycles and the financial crisis bit it hard. That is why in order to develop a fair analysis I will benchmark the company with its most relevant competitors, the German Lufthansa and the French Air France KLM. It can be argued that Norwegian Airline is the main rival. However its business model is different oriented. That is why I will not include this last one in the analysis.
To present these ideas the rest of the paper proceeds as follows. After a brief presentation of the company, section III will discuss the strategies followed by SAS in the last couple of years. Section IV and V will analyse in deep the corporate governance model of the company and its bond to the general Scandinavian model. Section VI will benchmark the financial results to the competition. The paper will close with a layout of the main findings.
II. Overview of the company
Based in Stockholm, Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) is the national airline of three Scandinavian States: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The airline has 136 aircraft in service and operates to 90 destinations within Scandinavia, Europe, Asia and North America. SAS’ main hub is Kastrup or Copenhagen Airport, which is the main European and intercontinental hub. Somewhat smaller hubs also exist at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen and Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.
The conglomerate was founded in 1951 as a merger between the three Scandinavian flag carriers Aerotransport (ABA), Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) and Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL), after the three had been cooperating on international routes