Airport, Analytics, Baltic, Latvia, Transport

SAS' Norwegian subsidiary Widerøe, which is considered a minor airline, was Europe's most punctual airline overall, with 91.5%. It was the first time two SAS Group airlines claimed the two top spots at the same time.

"I'm very proud that SAS is the world's most punctual airline right now.

We know how important it is for our customers to arrive on time, and we will continue to work hard with our punctuality work. I'm also very impressed of the hard work both SAS and Widerøe's employees carry out each day to take care of our customers and achieve a world-class punctuality," says Marek Pedersen, SAS Scandinavian Airlines District Manager Latvia & East Europe.

Only two other airlines worldwide had a punctuality record near SAS's:

the two Japanese airlines JAL and ANA. Amongst the European carriers, Finnair was Europe's 19thmost punctual airline with a punctuality of 81.36%, Lufthansa 28thplace with 78.65%, British Airways 32ndplace with 76.42% and Air France 39thplace with 70.36%. The punctuality average for all European airlines was 77.3% last month.

Also, SAS experienced a record high passenger load factor in July. The passenger load It was 85.6%, which is the highest level ever recorded for any month. The number of passengers increased by 6.6% to 2.1 million and SAS traffic increased overall by 7.7%.

A total of 132,000 more passengers flew with SAS in July than during the previous month. SAS also continued to increase capacity in July, by 6.7%.

Despite tough competition on European routes, traffic rose strongly in July, with the largest growth coming on routes to and from Norway. SAS flew 28% more passengers to and from Norway, and the number of passengers increased by a good 43% on routes between Norway and Spain alone.