Tens of thousands of air passengers will be affected by cancelled flights and the possibility of increased airfares this spring due to confirmed schedule changes and potential price hikes by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) in response to the Middle East conflict.
SAS CEO Anko van der Werff told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri that, having cancelled “a couple of hundred flights during March,” the carrier would wipe “at least a thousand departures” from schedules in April. The firm is “trying to protect our traffic as much as possible,” van de Werff said, but pointed to the impact of the conflict on oil supplies, and the knock-on effect on consumers, as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
“The price of jet fuel has doubled in ten days,” van der Werff explained, adding: “Although we are trying to absorb cost increases as much as we can, this is a shock that hits the aviation industry directly.”
While spokesperson Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji promised flyers with existing bookings would not be slapped with post-de facto increases, anyone booking from now on could find the average cost of a SAS flight is now up by 500 SEK (around €46.36). Long-haul, transatlantic tickets could be as much as 2,700 SEK (€250.31) more than before the crisis.
For those flyers whose departures are being cancelled, the airline aims “always to provide clear information as early as possible and to offer practical same-day alternatives wherever feasible,” the carrier’s representative told The Independent, emphasising that SAS is not the only airline implementing contingency measures. “The sharp increase in fuel costs is affecting the entire European aviation system, and we have therefore, as earlier communicated, also made certain price adjustments linked to the current fuel situation,” she said.
Other airlines are reacting similarly to SAS. British Airways has also recently announced schedule changes, expanding its long-haul network to Australia and Sri Lanka, and providing extra capacity to alternative holiday destinations in the Caribbean, for example, in response to customer demand as seen in searches through its tour operator arm.
The US-Israeli attacks on Iran, and Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Middle Eastern neighbours and shipping, began on 28 February and, in the absence of a clear timeline for achieving the end of the dispute, appear set to continue. The ensuing uncertainty is impacting consumer sentiment and spreading to the wider region, including territories not usually associated with the Middle East as a destination, such as Cyprus and Türkiye. So far, the cost to the travel and tourism sector has been estimated at US$600 million per day, according to the WTTC.
