SAS CEO: European Airlines Desperately Need Consolidation
Photo Credit: Scandinavian Airlines CEO Anko van der Werff. Source: SAS Airlines SAS Airlines
Skift Take
For now, SAS is focused on getting out of bankruptcy in clean financial shape, and hopes to be part of whatever larger European airline landscape emerges in coming years.
Anko van der Werff has a thing for airline bankruptcies. Either they follow him or he follows them. All of the three previous airlines he has worked for and led, Aeromexico as CCO, and as CEOs of Avianca and now SAS have gone through their rites of passage after he joined or after he left. And he relishes his role as tthye sharp but genial turnaround artist.
With SAS, which he joined as CEO in July 2021 in the throes of covid challenges, 2022 was even tougher as the company dealt with pilot and labor strikes and summer travel chaos, resulting in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in the U.S. courts. Now in 2023, Anko expects to come out of bankruptcy in the second half of the year and much better year and earnings ahead.
Earlier this month as he was on a whirlwind tour of New York City to launch the new JFK to Copenhagen fight, I interviewed him about the path ahead for him and the airline he leads.
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