14.1.2010
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 expected to attract more than 200,000 additional transfer passengers per year.
With a new strategic partnership, Copenhagen Airports (CPH) and SAS are 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 today reduced from 40 to 30 minutes for a number of SAS connections in the Nordic Region. Combined with additional significant improvements of passenger service, optimisation 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 of 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.
The country manager of SAS in Denmark, Flemming Jensen, is also very satisfied with the strategic partnership.
”The new partnership will entail major improvements for SAS passengers. Both for passengers who begin or end their journeys in Copenhagen, but, very much so, also for all those passengers who fly via Copenhagen Airport to other destinations around the world. Relative to our competitors, we strengthen Copenhagen Airport as the key international traffic hub of SAS," said Flemming Jensen, COO of SAS Production CPH.
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. SAS and CPH have now reduced the minimum connection time from 40 to 30 minutes for passengers flying via Copenhagen to or from Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Helsinki (see example below). This means shorter travel time for passengers because they can connect faster to one of the 43 additional flights per day that will be available as a result of the shorter transfer time. 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 so-called Schengen countries.
By reducing the minimum connection time, Copenhagen Airport and SAS will be placed considerably higher on the lists of the attractive search engines and sales systems around the world which identify possible and fast travel itineraries.
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 favourable 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.
For further information, please contact:
Mikkel Thrane, head of communications at SAS. Tel.: +45 41323237, mail: mikkel.thrane@sas.dk
Søren Hedegaard Nielsen, head of media relations at CPH. Tel +45 32312806, mail: soeren.h.nielsen@cph.dk
Example: A passenger from Hannover arrives at Copenhagen Airport at 19:35. The next flight to Helsinki is at 20:05. With the previous minimum connection time of 40 minutes, he could not choose that flight and therefore had to wait for the next flight at 22:40, or travel on a different airline via a different airport. The minimum connection time of 30 minutes allows the passenger to take the 20:05 flight, which reduces the total travel time by 2 hours and 35 minutes.