SAS plans axe 5,000 jobs as the airline warned that Covid-19 is expected to see demand “significantly affected” for years.
The cuts will be split between about 1,900 full-time positions in Sweden, 1,300 in Norway and 1,700 in Denmark.
The jobs loss announcement came on the same day that British Airways revealed plans for 12,000 redundancies and comes as rival Norwegian Air fights for survival.
The COVID-19 outbreak has “removed most of the demand for air travel and thereby the commercial basis for airlines,” SAS warned.
The Scandinavian flag carrier, which normally handles 30 million passengers a year, expects “very limited” activity in the summer peak and is only operating a limited domestic network in Norway and Sweden.
Given the current restrictions, SAS expects limited activity in the important summer season.
“In addition, it will most likely take some years before demand returns to the levels seen before Covid-19,” the airline added.
“The uncertainty regarding demand and the time it takes to adapt the organisation means that SAS must act proactively.
“This gives SAS the flexibility to ramp-up the business quickly if demand returns, but also to take further actions if recovery takes longer than currently envisaged.”
Chief executive Rickard Gustafson (pictured) said: “Covid-19 has forced SAS to face a new and unprecedented reality that will reverberate not only in the coming months, but also during the coming years.
“Our ambition is to continue to be the leading airline in Scandinavia and to have a leading role in the Scandinavian infrastructure as a guarantor of national and international connectivity.
“In order to continue this important societal function, we need to adapt our cost base to the prevailing circumstances.
“Regretfully, we are forced to adapt our workforce to lower passenger demand. Not least in view of the company’s successful journey in recent years, which has been made possible by the great work done by SAS’s competent and dedicated employees.
“We will now work intensively together with trade union representatives and others to identify solutions so that as few people as possible are affected.
“Furthermore, we remain ready to quickly ramp-up operations and reduce the number of affected positions if demand recovers more quickly.”