SAS is to axe Heathrow services to Danish city Aarhus so it can build up UK flights to its hub in Copenhagen.
The daily Aarhus operation ends on October 30 to allow Heathrow resources to be used for more services to the Danish capital.
The move by the Scandinavian carrier comes in the same month as Ryanair unveiled plans to launch double-daily flights to Aarhus from Stansted on November 1. Fares lead in at £99 return (Travel Weekly September 13).
SAS UK and Ireland director of sales and marketing Robin Kamark confirmed the Aarhus slots would be used to increase Copenhagen traffic.
“We are adding this new flight to our Copenhagen schedules as our passenger traffic is demanding an increase,” he said.
“This will have the added advantage of feeding additional traffic to our hub.”
From October 31, SAS’s Heathrow-Copenhagen flights increase from five daily to six a day. The additional service gives the airline’s passengers an extra early evening option.
SAS and Star Alliance partners Lufthansa and United Airlines are committed to building up each other’s hubs through increasing traffic.
An SAS spokesman said the decision to drop the MD-80 flights to Aarhus was not connected with the Ryanair move and was simply driven by a need to use Heathrow slots more effectively.
“We had to evaluate the slots and get greater utilisation,” said the airline’s spokesman.
He said SAS passengers wanting to fly to Aarhus from Heathrow in the future would connect through Copenhagen.
SAS is also building up flights to its Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo hubs from Stansted as competition to Scandinavia increases with low-cost carriers Go and Ryanair..