SAS blames increased passenger tax when new direct route to the USA is canceled: – Does not reduce emissions
SAS announced on Wednesday that several new directors will start in Newark as well as outside New York from April next year. The new departures will be from Sweden’s second largest at Gothenburg and Denmark’s fourth largest at Aalborg.
SAS has said after the pandemic that it will start new US routes also from smaller airports in Scandinavia, by using a newly purchased long-haul aircraft with fewer seats on board and thus adapting to smaller markets in the largest hubs of Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
In this work, Bergen airport Flesland in particular has been on the map for a new direct route, among other things flysmart24.no have mentioned earlier.
SAS boss Anko van der Werff says increased passenger tax in Norway on long flights from and including the New Year is an important reason for choosing Aalborg and Gothenburg over Bergen, and refers to the extra tax, which he believes has no effect on the climate.
– A major detour
It is part of the settlement in the state budget for next year, when the passenger tax on long flights increases from 220 to 320 kroner per ticket from and to Norway.
The SAS boss believes that the money from the tax is used to finance hulls in the state budget, and not to reduce climate emissions.
– I don’t think it gets out at all, and I don’t understand where the money goes. One issue was whether the politicians would use extra taxes to finance, for example, extra supply of biofuel. Instead, the fees mean that we have to consider new ventures elsewhere, says Anko van der Werff to DN.
He says this is an important explanation for a new direct route to New York being moved to other places in Scandinavia, and to airports that are as large (Gothenburg) or significantly smaller (Aalborg) than Flesland.
– Passengers from Bergen must take a major detour via cities such as Oslo, Copenhagen or Frankfurt. It does not help the environment, says van der Werff.
DN has asked the Ministry of Finance for a comment on the SAS chief’s statements, but the ministry was unable to respond to the inquiry on Wednesday afternoon.
– Introduced in good times
SAS offers tickets to New York for prices from DKK 3–4,000 each for a round-trip ticket, and the new fee has this time just increased by DKK 100 per ticket. For SAS, the tax is still used as an argument because, according to SAS, the profitability of the airlines is “less than DKK 50 per ticket”.
Head of community contact Knut Morten Johansen at SAS says:
– The upcoming addition is dramatic and has a very negative impact on the planning of a route like Bergen–New York. The passenger tax is a fiscal tax introduced in good times, and is in reality a cyclical tax, says Johansen.
The passenger tax was first introduced by the Høyre/Frp government in 2016, and has since been extended several times, with the exception of a period during the corona pandemic.
SAS CEO Anko van der Werff says that the company wants to further expand the route offer to and from North America with the new Airbus A321LR aircraft, which is a long-range aircraft with just one aisle. The company, on the other hand, cannot answer whether Bergen has basically been put away for good, or whether it can come back later.
Closure of Russian airspace since February this year has put several Asia routes on hold, but in recent days SAS has started selling tickets on the route between Copenhagen and Tokyo again, with the first time at the end of March next year, reports Flygtorget.se.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We like to share our stuff using links that lead directly to our pages. Copying or other forms of use of all or part of the content can only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms see her.