What is SAS? | SAS Full Form | SAS Term

Scandinavian Airlines, stylized as SAS, is the national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Short for Scandinavian Airlines System and legally referred to as Scandinavian Airlines System Denmark-Norway-Sweden, SAS is part of SAS Group and is headquartered in Solna, Sweden.
Including its subsidiaries SAS Link and SAS Connect, the airline operates a fleet of 133 aircraft to 130 destinations, as of July 2024. The principal hub of SAS is Copenhagen Airport, which connects to 106 destinations worldwide. The airline’s two other hubs Stockholm Arlanda Airport with 74 destinations, and Oslo Airport, with 56 destinations. Additionally, there are minor hubs at Bergen Airport, Flesland, Göteborg Landvetter Airport, Stavanger Airport, and Trondheim Airport.
In 2017, SAS carried 28.6 million passengers, achieving revenues of 40 billion Swedish kronor. This made it the eighth-largest airline in Europe and the largest in Denmark and Sweden. The SAS fleet is composed of aircraft consisting of Airbus A319, Airbus A320, Airbus A320neo, Airbus A321LR, Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Embraer 195 aircraft. SAS also wet leases Airbus A320neo, ATR 72, and Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft.
The airline was founded in 1946 as a consortium to pool the transatlantic operations of Swedish airline Svensk Interkontinental Lufttrafik, Norway’s Det Norske Luftfartselskap and Det Danske Luftfartselskab of Denmark. The consortium was extended to cover European and domestic cooperation two years later. In 1951, all the airlines were merged to create SAS. SAS has been described as “an icon of Norwegian–Swedish–Danish cooperation”. In 1997, SAS co-founded Star Alliance, the first of the three major airline alliances, alongside United Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa and Thai Airways International. On 27 June 2018, the Norwegian government announced that it had sold all its shares in SAS.
In October 2023, as part of the restructuring of Scandinavian Airlines’ parent company SAS Group, Air France–KLM, the Government of Denmark and two financial firms announced plans to invest in SAS Group, with Air France-KLM taking a 19.9% stake. On March 19, 2024, US Bankruptcy Court approved the investment and European Commission announced that it approved the investment on June 28, 2024. As a result of the approval of the investment, SAS discontinued its Star Alliance membership on 31 August 2024, and joined SkyTeam the following day.