New strategic partnership between CPH and SAS: Copenhagen to become the world’s best transfer airport

Shorter travel time, access to more than 40 additional daily flight connections on SAS, and better facilities for passengers.  A new partnership between SAS and CPH is taking a major step towards making Copenhagen Airport one of the very best transfer airports in the world and the leading international traffic hub in northern Europe.

As the first specific result of the partnership, the minimum connection time at Copenhagen Airport was reduced from 40 to 30 minutes for a number of SAS connections in the Nordic Region. Combined with additional significant improvements of passenger service, optimization of passenger and baggage handling, parking of SAS aircraft closer to each other, shared marketing efforts and a number of other initiatives, it is estimated that the partnership will attract an additional 200,000 transfer passengers to Copenhagen per year.

Strengthening the hub

 “We establish the partnership to strengthen and improve Copenhagen’s status as a traffic hub with attractive flight connections to a globalised world and increased accessibility to the Øresund Region for the benefit of business and tourism. Moreover, we can help secure the up to 60,000-70,000 jobs which CPH and SAS create in Denmark,” said Brian Petersen, CEO of CPH.

But to attract more transfer passengers the new strategic partnership needs to include more than a reduced minimum connection time.

43 new attractive flight connections via Copenhagen

The initial focus will be on the six airports from which SAS carries the largest number of passengers via Copenhagen to other parts of the world. It is expected that the initiative will initially result in up to 50,000 transfer passengers per year.

In the course of the year, SAS and CPH will reduce the minimum connection time to 30 minutes for all flights from the Schengen countries.

A better airport for everybody

In addition to becoming more attractive to passengers using Copenhagen Airport as a springboard, the partnership will also have a favorable impact for passengers starting or ending their journeys in Copenhagen. One of the initiatives will be an improvement of the check-in facilities and efficiency improvements in baggage handling. Finally, the partnership will be used to strengthen the collaboration on route development in Copenhagen.