SAS to close nine routes in 2016

Passengers heading from Copenhagen to Moscow and Tel Aviv to need other options in the future

Scandinavian airline SAS intends to close two year-round routes and seven seasonal routes next year.

The airline will shut down the year-round routes from Copenhagen to Moscow and Tel Aviv, while the seven seasonal routes – Copenhagen-Ankara, Stockholm-Ankara, Stockholm-Pristina, Gothenburg-Berlin, Gothenburg-Dublin, Oslo-Pristina and Oslo-Salzburg – will also be axed.

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen weak development on the Moscow route, which means it must be discontinued,” Trine Kromann-Mikkelsen, the head of communications for SAS, told Check-In.dk.

“We’ll retain the Copenhagen-St. Petersburg route and we still have flights to Moscow from Stockholm. Tel Aviv is an expensive and competitive route to operate and we don’t see it as being viable. We’ve also gauged that the unstable political situation has influenced the route.”

READ MORE: SAS taxis out four new routes from Copenhagen

Wizz off to Transylvania
In related news, the Hungarian low-budget airline Wizz Air has revealed it will open a new route from Billund Airport to Cluj-Napoca in Romania starting next summer. The flight will be serviced twice a week.

Wizz Air already operates flights from Billund to Gdansk in Poland and Vilnius in Lithuania.

READ MORE: Copenhagen Airport launching new takeaway concept

First A350 flight
Finally, aviation enthusiasts in the capital will be in for some excitement on Sunday when the first Airbus A350 lands in Copenhagen Airport.

Flown by Finnair as part of pilot and crew training, the virgin flight to Denmark is scheduled to land at 13:05 from Helsinki. It is one of 11 planned A350 flights between Copenhagen and Helsinki looking ahead to November 3.

Keep an eye on Finnair flight number AY661 here at the Copenhagen Airport arrivals update page for any changes to the flight schedule.

As of now, just three airlines have the new A350: Finnair, Qatar Airways and Vietnam Airlines.




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