SAS to sell airbus fleet to cut costs

Scandinavian Airlines System is considering selling its entire fleet of eight Airbus A321 planes to cut costs, the Norwegian paper Dagens Naeringsliv has reported.

Sture Stoelen, investor relations manager at SAS, said "A decision on whether to sell these planes is a few months in the future".

In the current market, the eight in service would sell for around 1bn skr (€0.11bn) less that the airline paid for them.

SAS has also contracted to buy a further four A321s, and would face penalties if it reneged on that deal.

In addition to serving more than 90 destinations directly, the airline owns stakes in several Scandinavian regional carriers.

The company's Rezidor SAS Hospitality subsidiary operates about 185 hotels in 40 countries.

The Swedish government owns 21% of the new SAS, and the governments of Denmark and Norway each own 14%.