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The Northbound Show
Anko van der Werff: Rebuilding SAS from the Inside
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In the first episode of The Northbound Show, host Ken Villum Klausen sits down with Anko van der Werff, President and CEO of SAS.
Anko shares how he led SAS through one of the most challenging periods in its history, and what it takes to drive bold, strategic transformation in a traditionally conservative industry. His leadership has helped secure SAS’s role in Nordic aviation while shaping a brand that truly feels like home across the Nordics.
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Hosted by Ken Villum Klausen, The Northbound Show brings together Nordic founders and leaders for long-form conversations about how small nations consistently build companies with outsized global impact. Because the Nordics' greatest export isn't a product. It's a mindset.
It must be the most difficult job on the freaking earth to be running an airline. Like, can can you even try to explain how it is running such a complex business? I can at least tell you how exciting it is. I'm really excited about the next conversation here in the Northbound show. Welcoming Scandinavian Airlines CEO Anko to chat a bit about reinventing a true Nordic icon. And what is the future of aviation here in the Nordics? Let's get it going. How's it going? Good. Very good. Thanks for having me. Seriously, uh cool idea. Thank you very much. I'm uh I couldn't think of a cooler brand. You know, I'm probably the largest uh SAS fan there is in the Nordics. You keep on saying that, although you you'd be surprised how many people tell me that. I know, I know. Often when I fly, we actually speak about that. There's a lot of true diehard fans out there.
SPEAKER_00A lot of diehard fans. We had uh we we introduced uh business class a couple of months ago, and at the airport, there was people queuing up, seriously, caps on, hats from the 1980s, and people flew that day just to make sure that they'd be on board of one of the first um SES Euro bonus uh uh European business class flights again. Amazing. I mean I was on I was on multiple flights that day, and on all of the flights, I had someone said, I just flew today on purpose to make sure I just wanted to try it. Want to be there for the first flight again. Yeah. It's amazing. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So look, you're running um you're running a company which is uh is it this year you're turning 80 or next year? This year, yeah, well done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01This year. Nice. Yeah. And what what made you go into aviation? Like how how did that start?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's uh so definitely not something from my youth youth. Um, with my parents, I think I flew only twice. Um it happened really when in 1999, you you you asked me, and you're gonna get a lot of details. Yeah, right. So let's see. Um my then girlfriend, now wife and I started backpacking, or we backpacked in Southeast Asia for many months. And I came back and I was supposed to be a lawyer. And I was like, Holdie, this this was so fantastic, right? I mean, you you're you're in different cultures, you're in different climates, different um everything, right? So the whole experience and traveling. The traveling, of course, gives you a sense of freedom, but to really see those other cultures and really be there for months on end and and different cuisines and different everything. It was so exciting. I was um 24 and uh came back, and like I said, I'd pretty much graduated from law school. And a friend of mine said, Well, if you don't want to do that, then why don't you join KLM? And so I uh I checked it out and he said two important things. He said, with KLM you can actually work abroad. And I was like, oh, that's super cool, right? Sounds very exciting. And the other thing he said, it's very difficult to get into KLM, it's very competitive, it's very difficult. And I like I like that challenge. And so applied and was very fortunate to go through the rounds and started on the 1st of January 2000. And never looked back.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of talks about the Nordics and Scandinavia in many ways resembling the mindset of the Netherlands as well. Do you see any comparisons with, you know, how it was working at KLM and now running Scandinavian Airlines?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think first of all, society, of course. I mean, if you if let's let's forget the company maybe for a second, but when you look at society, and hey, I always claim to be a bit maybe of uh of an expert on this because we've lived in six, seven different countries. Uh six, seven, uh, yeah, to start now. Yeah, I can't take it anymore. Okay, let's let's let's not. Um but we've lived in uh we've lived in six, seven different countries. And um, of course, of all the countries that we lived in, I mean, some were Middle East, some were Latin America, then Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Netherlands is is the closest you can get. Um, what is surprising is when as a Dutch guy you start living in Sweden, for instance, you think it's all the same. People look the same, people dress the same, people right, as in as they do in the Netherlands. Um, it is shockingly different once you really get under under the skin. When you look at SES from the outside, it really looks at one, right? It's one. It's one beautiful brand. By the way, one of the most beautiful brands, I think the the the style, the logo type, and everything.
SPEAKER_01The new library from what lot last year or three years ago is amazing all.
SPEAKER_00It's amazing, right? I mean, really, really beautiful. And um, and yet when you come into the country, when you come into the company, it's really three, right? There is a Norwegian part, and there is very much a Swedish part, and there is a Danish part. And yeah, it's it's uh it's very different in that sense. Because even when you ask me, well, hey, as a Dutch guy living in Scandinavia, well, we have to be honest, even even Sweden and Denmark are, of course, very different, right? I think Denmark and the Netherlands are probably closest in their in their ways of working. Um, I think already with Sweden there are quite some differences, um, very different cultures, uh, very different views on hierarchy or versus consensus, etc. etc. And so I think uh yeah, you you'll you'll be. We were uh coming into Sweden the first time around, which was in 2005. Uh we were really surprised that the biggest culture shock we've had in all those years was actually moving as Dutch guys to uh to Sweden.
SPEAKER_01I'm really fond of uh overly overly excited about the use of sarcasm and irony. That has given me quite some problems using that in a business context in Sweden. So uh you live and you learn. Look, Ankus, there's one one thing I'm um I've thought a lot about. So every time I go traveling, right, I go to these massive airports. There's check-in and um lockage handling, infrastructure, ticketing systems, massive airlines, fueling, ground crew, pilots, cabin crew, change of schedule, change of cabin crew. It must be the most difficult job on the freaking earth to be running an airline. Like, can you even try to explain how it is running such a complex business?
SPEAKER_00Uh I can at least tell you how exciting it is. Um what I'm always I I find it funny because after 25, 26 years now in the business, you don't even realize how difficult it is sometimes, right? I mean, it's just you you know for a fact that this is what it's like. Um I remember talking to very senior consultants uh very early on in my career, and they always said that this is the most difficult business. Um, indeed, because it it touches everything, right? It goes from hardcore politics or geopolitics to the effects that has on oil price and rates of exchange and whatever, and then all the stakeholders, right? Uh governments, uh uh business societies to, of course, just the general population, unionism, whatever, right? There's all these all these different things. And then at the same time, you have to make 800 flights a day from Los Angeles to Tokyo work, right? And so it's really difficult to manage all of that. And at the same time, that is what makes it so fun. Um I really honestly, after 26 years, I am still there. I'm still genuinely there. That it's because it's so complex, it makes it so fun.
SPEAKER_01Is is it is do you think it's a defensive industry also? Is is there an opportunity for challenges to come in, or is it more or less like the alliance we have are the alliance we'll have in 10 years also?
SPEAKER_00No, I mean we've had, of course, a fair share of the of disruptors. I think uh one of the big ones in Europe has has really truly become one of the biggest ones, of course, right, Ryanair. They've done they've done an amazing job. You have to be you have to be honest there. Um the challenge is capital intensive, all those stakeholders that I managed, uh, that I spoke about uh earlier on that you have to manage. Um the capital requirement um with the access to all those supply chains that in the end then work the same for everybody, that is somewhat of a of a nivellating factor, uh, right? And um yeah, I I think it is I think it's difficult to truly disrupt until you get to the point of uh teleportation, yeah, those kind of things. Because until then it is a matter of well, there is a vehicle that's being used to generate speed um that with a car or a train you can't really get to, and cover distances where you actually don't have a road and infrastructure that you have to put in place. But then there is rules and regulations, of course, around that. So and those will be the same for everybody trying to play by those rules because otherwise it would be really chaotic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that is that is somewhat of a complication. But I do think that everything else, uh customer experience, right? Uh airport experiences, the digital experience, there you can really be uh you can add a lot of value as a brand.
SPEAKER_01It's been a few years since you took over the helm at uh SAS. What shape do you think SAS was really in when you took over? Because obviously it's an iconic brand of the Nordics. It's also had its fair share of challenges over the course of the, I think, the last decade or so, or maybe prior to that. What what what what what type of of an airline was it you took over?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh I I probably still haven't fully digested also because there's there's two things. There was, of course, the shape the airline was in, and maybe the shape also Scandinavian air travel was in, right? I came in pretty much at the back end of flight shame and right, all those things. Um and then there was COVID. And so I sometimes Yeah, exactly. And then sometimes look back, think, okay, was it because the state of the airline was X, or was it because society flight shame was Y? Or was it because COVID was Z, right? But the combination of those elements altogether was um we were clearly not doing well, right? And I I I do think that had been going on for a while. Um, and so yeah, it was time for pretty much a harder reset, but it was also time for a harder reset and uh a more um profound probably reset than I had imagined coming in, uh, right, because I came in in July 2021. Uh it was still the Delta variant. Omicron hadn't even been invented yet. Uh Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine yet. So it was, it was still, there was still some maybe naive hope of, well, we're we're gonna pull through, right? We're gonna try this. Um that went out the window as soon as those things happened that I just mentioned.
SPEAKER_01Well, what are some of the larger decisions when you do that reset? Is it resetting the brand? Is it getting hold of a new fleet? Like is it a combination of everything? It's pretty much a bit of a combination of everything.
SPEAKER_00I mean, look, the first thing is that you actually have to get board, management, owners to the point that they actually want to do a restructuring. Because when you never pull the cord, you're just gonna muddle on. And that was very much something that I discussed with the board and owners at length, right? I do not want to become a zombie airline, propped up by state funds infinitively, uh, just not being able to really invest in yourself, invest in your customers. That was that was one of the ideas that I detested most, right? That we just would keep on going. Um yeah, I don't know, being a zombie airline. That was that was really the the words we always used. Um, and so to get people there, to get people to say, okay, fine then, we're gonna do it differently, um, yeah, that required pretty much almost the first year anyway. And then it became clear that we had to do something differently. And so pillar number one was let's do a restructuring. And then pillar number two is okay, well, fine, and you get to restructure, then what do you want to make of it? And for me, essentially, some of that stuff was always extremely clear. SES by itself, as an independent airline, I didn't believe made a lot of sense. You're at the fringes of Europe, uh, there is it's a beautiful place in the world, as you and I both know, and we're gonna talk about it. Um, but it's only 25 million people that do not live in one city. I lived in Mexico City for seven years, by the way, best place on earth. We should go there once, but 25 million people in one city. And so if you connect Mexico City with Tokyo, which is also 25 million people, of course you're gonna fill a daily flight, right? The biggest city in, or the the second biggest city in in Norway is Bergen, and it's got like 280,000 people, right? I mean, that's that's not a lot. So, how do you build something that works for a scattered part of the world, very north? So that means that there is no northbound travel, basically, right? Look at Sweden, 80% of Swedes live Stockholm or below. And so, yeah, what are you gonna do with with the land above, right? So, how do you build something that then really works? So, very clear for me was pillar number one, we're gonna do restructuring. Pillar number two is that restructuring needs to focus on we need to consolidate, right? You you need to be part of something bigger. And if, and we believe when the European Commission approves this year of the Air France KLM takeover of SES, it's one in three, 2026, right? I mean, it's ridiculous. It's a long time, it's it's a long, long time. So that was pillar number two, right? You need to do something around call it the ownership structure. And then pivot number three was a lot of customer. And I'm an absolute religious believer in net promoter score, NPS. Um, NPS was not measured, there was something else in place. There was, of course, a customer focus, but I think we've really turned it into customer obsession. I I think actually the real challenge of the old SCS was that even though we were owned partially by three different countries, those three countries realized that if they would put up a fight at board level, then they would never get anywhere. And so they didn't. But that, in my view, meant that we were an orphan. The owners almost didn't act very much. And you had no parent. You had no clear parent. And and that is actually what I've seen from my from my years in Latin America. That is actually even more complex, complicated, right? More complex. That you that you don't have an owner that you're completely aligned with. And you can understand that if there's multiple state owners in you, that you're never never going to get that alignment, right? Because of course those states would want to maybe fight for their own interests. And so they chose not to do that. That's good on them, right? Great, great for not fighting, but at the same time, not fighting meant orphanage, which is also not great. So one of the big fights was, like I said, or the big resistance was well, can we even get to a restructuring? And I think there, the internal opposition um was was quite stifling um in the beginning. People really did not want to get to a restructuring. There was quite some opposition uh there from uh from even up to my own team. Uh the interesting thing was that I went the other way, where with the owners there was more appetite than the board uh followed suit. And then yeah, my team was still a bit, I think, uh yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's rude to say confused, but um they were not really eager to to pull that off from day one. And then the second thing is we had lots of things where we wanted to make it an airline again. And I found that it wasn't maybe enough um industry airline knowledge. There was, of course, a lot of SAS airline knowledge in there, but that also meant a bit of not invented here syndrome, right? Everything that was not SAS was immediately deemed, well, uh is that really right? So can that be a smart idea, whatever. When look at the rest of the world, right? I mean, there's lots of things that other airlines have done over the years that are simply worth implementing. So I think it's a it's a combination of those two things. Getting to a restructuring really meant changes to the management team, to the to my surroundings, let's say, to get to restructuring and then execute on the restructuring really successfully, and then yeah, make it um a real airline based on real airline principles and values.
SPEAKER_01Do you think it's fair to say, and this you know, might be opinion also that in some aspects SES was falling a bit behind in comparison to some of their competitors in regards to innovation or the overall experience, because a lot of stuff happened at the same time in the overall airline industry, right? So it it felt it feels like when flying CES today that so many things has changed to the better in such a swift period of time, like last couple of years, the overall experience of flying with CES is it felt it feels like a massive upgrade. And I I assume that has been like you know difficult to pull off and also difficult to identify which levers are we pulling? Where can we improve on the experience? Where can we do things that will really resonate with the customers, which in any industry it's all about? What what what's your thoughts about that?
SPEAKER_00Well, f first of all, my thought is well, thank you for saying that. Because when we started this path a couple of years ago, it's not obvious that you'll get there, right? And so we this has been blood, sweat, and tears. I mean, you really uh I think everybody is. I I'm I'm also now at a stage where I'm absolutely happy to share that it was just absolute hard work. It's been very tough. I mean, plenty of tears cried, and I don't know what. And here we are. And so when people like you, and and I have to really say, many others are pointing uh or sending us emails, WhatsApps, whatever, LinkedIn messages, uh, and saying, look, it's such a pleasure flying SES again these days. Um, we're really, really grateful. This is really great. So, yeah, what did we do there? Um extremely complex because you touch upon hundreds of things, but very simple at the same time. It's called NPS, right? Net Promoter Score. And so I remember in COVID, I think already in my first year, at the end of the first year, I think, we wanted to go out to our uh diamond members, right? Golden Diamond members. Um, and we set up something which I believe the company had not done for many years. Um doesn't really matter. Uh, but we said, let's go into the three capitals of Scandinavia, and we're gonna invite uh 300 people in each city, um, and we're gonna see if they show up and then have a conversation with them. And that was the start of um the evenings, as we now call them, the evening of conversation. And we've been uh we we were surprised. Let me let me first tell you because I it it it just it still blows my mind, and it's such a beautiful story at some time, right? And it tells you about the loyalty uh for this company as well. So we we send out invites, and so there's 900 seats, 300, 300, 300, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo. And it took 33 minutes for all 900 seats to be taken. All 900 seats taken in 33 minutes. And the day that we were flying to Copenhagen to have that session with our Diamond customers, um, there's people on the aircraft that are coming to me and say, Oh, it's such a shame. I was in the United States, I was in the middle of the night, I got that email, and then when I wake up, already all the seats taken. It's gone. So could I please attend tonight? And could I and and this is 22, and we really were just coming out of COVID, and we had the the the strike in 22, and it was just right, all very difficult. And yet people were feeling like that about us, and so that was that was truly awesome to see. And those evenings were, I think, the embodiment as well of our desire and my personal desire to really stay close to our customers because it allowed us two things. One, okay, so now we're in chapter 11, we're doing this restructuring. Here is what that means. But we could immediately tell 900 of our most important clients, ourselves, what was going on, right? We had the narrative and we could tell them. And 900 people, that's on a total of 8 million euro bonus members, in a way that's negligible. But these are 900 people that of course talk to their super loyal, super loyal, talk to their friends, talk at birthday parties, talk wherever, right? And so 900 people, hey, you you start to make an impact. And that was something that we got back fairly quickly because we then heard from others that said, oh, by the way, my friend was at that party and and and or at the event, and they heard you speak, and okay, thank you very much for taking the time and whatever. So, one, it allowed us, of course, to in a way control the narrative still about what was going on with with SAS. The second thing it did was, and we keep on doing that today, is one, what would you like to hear from us, right? And so by by them asking questions, you know what is on their minds. I'd say if five, six, seven people stand up on a on such an evening and they say, Oh, by the way, your on-time performance is really not great, and it hasn't been for a number of years. Okay, great. Well, on-time performance, right? Okay, well, what whatever they they spoke about. But in those conversations, you then also are able to test. Okay, so you say that on-time performance is great, but is on-time performance more important to you than X or then Y? Um, by the way, what about new destinations? Where would you like to go? And first time we were here in Copenhagen, so this must be September, October 22, I would think. Um with with that with that evening, we asked, should we reintroduce European business class? Because it was something that we were playing with. And it was something that the company as such was uh Maybe not a big fan of at that point. They weren't convinced that this was really the way forward. And it was very interesting what happens then. Honestly, I'll tell you again, because Scandinavia were supposed to be all equal, right? Everybody's equal. And so, nah, no need for business class, right? Because that means that you have in front of the curtain and back of the curtain. And that's not us. So publicly, people were like, eh, not so sure. In the breaks, you should have seen what happened. I had dozens and dozens in every single of the three capitals, people coming up to me and say, Great idea. Absolute great idea. It's ridiculous. You don't have a business class at the moment, and you don't have this and you don't have that. And British Airways and Lufthansa and Air France and Kelly, they all have you should do that. So that was it, it it allows you to listen to your customers, test ideas, and then what we now do every single year, we say, okay, well, last year we heard you say one, two, three. We have followed up on one and two, they're implemented. Unfortunately, we're still lagging behind a number three. We're not perfect at number three, and we really apologize. Here we go again, right? So what's your new number top three? And we'll take number three from last year with us. And so doing that every year also builds, I think, credibility to we deeply care about you. We care about what you want us to do. And by the way, that also it doesn't mean that we should always do what you want, because hey, if you want caviar and champagne for free, well, we're not going to do that. But then at least we'll explain why we can't do that.
SPEAKER_01I think I wrote you a couple of times when I tried the new experience, like where hey, Ankman, it's amazing. The food is awesome. And you write back 30 seconds later, what do you think of the food? Yeah. Like our food was awesome, it was really great, and the cuttery is nice, and a bit of a heavy dessert, and you're instantly, yeah, yeah, I'm the desserts are getting smaller. So it feels like you're you're massively obsessed on like the finite details of that experience. Yes. How do you prior in that? Like what what we don't know.
SPEAKER_00And I think you as a as a founder, you know, right? I mean, so we've we've had years. I mean, let's be honest. We we really had a couple of years where you're working 16-hour days every single day, including the weekends, whatever, right? And and sometimes more than that, including all the travel and I don't know what, right? So, but I think that's what it needs. And and where I where we are now, um, and and on-time performance was the same thing, for instance, right? I was for about 20 months. We have an internal dashboard on on-time performance. And for 20 months, I was a number one user of that report internally, which is ridiculous, right? Um, that that shouldn't be me. That should, of course, be the operations team. And they was they were numbered two to 100, right? But I was there, and I think it's a important that as a leader in the organization, you show the organization what you really care about, because it's not about me, me. It's about I believe that our customers are telling us this. And our customers are saying X, and now we're gonna do X, and I am following up on what our customers want. And so, very important. And then I'm gonna take a sidestep to uh another Swedish icon. Um, this is Ingvar Kamrad, uh Kampert talking, right? Because he still had they call it front weeks, and it's again one of those things that I just stole from from from another company. Um, I want our leadership team to be out there, and what IKEA does is they do, I think, twice a year or once a year, their leaders go a week or two weeks, whatever, it doesn't really matter, an assigned period of time, and they go into the stores. And Ingvar Kamprad still did that apparently until really late in his life. And then I asked, okay, well, did you like the meatballs? Yeah, okay, how many did you get? Well, eight. Was eight enough? Well, yeah. Could it have been seven? Should it have been nine? Right. And apparently, really, he went through the seven and nine question, even though people already said that eight was was good. And that's what we're trying to do, right?
SPEAKER_01Are we are we seeing you serving coffee on the way to Stockholm?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've I yeah, would love to uh uh have registered actually once or twice, and then uh things happened. I did register for a um cabin crew course uh very early on, and then also life happens. I I think I went there for one or two days, uh, couldn't finish it. But yeah, it's it's good to be um and by the way, I really like that. It is I I feel much better walking around at the airports uh uh talking to our pilots, our crew, our maintenance guys.
SPEAKER_01Sitting in an office all day.
SPEAKER_00Sitting in office, or even worse, having to go into some, I don't know, uh, government meetings or which are also fun, which are also important.
SPEAKER_01Probably something different. So look, you you so you've been at it now for a few years. It's been a massive transformation in many ways, probably not completely done yet. You're still waiting for the authorities to approve on the new on the new ownership structure. Yeah. Where do you find CES right now? Like early 2026? What's what's the status now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're getting there. I I I really when I look back now, I think about 12 months ago was really the first time I think that I started thinking, okay, maybe, maybe really we're gonna get there, right? Um and and in a way, you're always convinced, because if you're not convinced, then who is? So you never really allow yourself, what if, what if it fails? What if it doesn't work? What if, right? Those questions don't really pop your brain. But I think about a year ago, and then certainly the summer last year was just stellar, um, was for the first time that you really think, hey, things are happening, right? Things are moving at a pace that I like better than it was before. You could see the light. Yeah, at a consistency that I like better than it was before. Um, our customers are really starting to give us live feedback. Um love it, right? When people approach me on on board of an aircraft and say, well, just great, right? Um, just just great. And you would always, it sounds such a marketing message, but it truly isn't. This happens frequently. This happens frequently that people walk up to us, and this is great, including uh very importantly, our own colleagues who keep on telling us that. So yeah, it's um yeah, we are we're getting there. Lots more still to come. Um investments needed, but are being made. Uh, one, we ordered uh 55 new aircraft last year. Pretty cool. They'll start coming in late 2027. Embraered, yes, right. Embraer's, yeah. Um, and at the same time, we get two more 350s in this year, right? The big uh the big bugs. My favorite aircraft. Yeah, yeah, no, beautiful. Uh just beautiful. Awesome experience. Yeah, great customer experience. Um, great custom experience because it gives us also more relevance as a company again, right? So when you fly to, of course, more long-haul destinations. Um, so yeah, 350s, 320s. Uh, stay tuned. I think there's going to be more on that. Then, of course, the Ember Air is coming in as of late next year. And then um, new lounge in Copenhagen next year, double the uh space of what we have today. And one that doesn't overlook the car park, but actually overlooks the airport, uh, aircraft, that'd be nice. And investments in, for instance, Wi-Fi, right? We just tested uh Starlink last week. And let's hold that for a second.
SPEAKER_01I have a bunch of questions for all folks in itself. But look, um, so as as I I said in the intro, I think SAS is one of the most iconic Scandinavian brands. Um probably known by the entire population across all Scandinavian countries. Do you think having that iconic Nordic brand is an advantage? Or or could it be a burden also?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, both. Um it definitely it definitely was both when when I joined. Um because I haven't put this into words, so I need to I need to think whilst I'm talking. But I think what happened was even our own employees saw it as some abstract it's SUS, right? It's SAS and it's almost untouchable. And hold on guys, I mean SAS is is a group of decisions made by a group of highly skilled professionals taking together. Right? And and so um one of my pillars is we should do more ancillary revenues. Right? And ancillary revenues is uh for me, and again it sounds corny, but it's just a hundred percent true. This is how I look upon this, it's personalization and and almost democratization to the max. If you and I fly tomorrow and you have a pet and I don't, and you want to bring your pet, then by all means, right? Here's here's your pet, and it's just personalized and you pay for your pet and I don't. If you want an upgrade and I don't, if I want to bring two suitcases and you don't, if I want to bring, if I want to uh rent a car, if you want to book a hotel, right? I mean, all of those things that I just mentioned should be possible for you to book under the SAS brand and on under the SAS website or app or whatever, but it's all personalization, right? And yet, even internally, that was being seen as well, but that's what low-cost airlines do. Yeah, guys, it's it's just so wrong to look at it that way, right? It's real personalization and it's just customer obsession. Allow a customer to take the running customers are smart, right? Customers know what they want for themselves. We are in business to give them a variety of options and they can choose themselves, right? Let customers take the decision, don't choose for them. And so when you look at SAS in the old style, maybe and you think, well, that's an abstract thing, then ancillaries didn't really come into play. And we have more than doubled, almost now tripled our ancillaries. And ancillaries is uh is a margin maker, right? Because if you want to book a hotel, um fine, you could go to all sorts of websites and book a hotel. I'd rather have you do that through us because then we get the commission for it, right? And so that is something that we've really built into the company. So I think it's uh it was a burden from the start, but it's um and that's what I call a bit the not invented here syndrome earlier on. But um, yeah, but that's that's behind us.
SPEAKER_01So a big big theme here in the uh northbound show is um creativity, also. I think it's one of the core skills in our region. Um SAS has had has done a lot of business creativity recently. You just spoke about um you know the ability to book an entire travel with SAS, so wholesales and everything. You've also been truly innovating in other aspects of the business that might not give direct revenue or even revenues at all, but are you know really appealing to look at from the outside. So you have this nation unknown. Um you you recently fired up Starlink, as you were just saying in one of the first jets. Um you were doing some Astralis crews, we're playing against each other, one flying, one on the ground. I I think I I read that the flying crew won. Yeah, they did actually. I I think there's been so much SAS um innovation over maybe just the last year or so. So, what is like do you have a strategy around that? Is it more opportunistic for creativity that arises throughout the organization? How do you look at that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so definitely also the last one, the the the letter, uh, because Destination Unknown was created by Matthias, one of our guys on the team. Uh fantastic concept, right? Just just real fun. And uh and we really uh just just got onto it and said, yeah, absolutely, it's what we're gonna do. Not realizing even ourselves, I don't even think Matthias knew at that point how big of uh of a thing it was gonna be. So yeah, so um Paul Verhagen, our chief commercial officer and and the teams um launched it, and uh we've been doing it uh once a year since. We hope to be doing one this year again, later in the year, after the summer. And uh stay tuned, uh drum roll. I'll sign up on the website to try it myself. Now it is surprise and delight, but it's it is so simple.
SPEAKER_01What about the Starlink uh Astralis Burns? Uh Starlink was was amazing. Starlink on all jets, so uh we can have proper Wi-Fi flying to the US.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's gonna be in call it in in two stages. There's gonna be pre-summer. We want to have 60 aircraft ready pre-summer, and then we're gonna do the rest of the fleet after the summer. And that will include the white bodies. Uh it was amazing, I have to say. It's just uh it's a gold standard out there. I was uh I've flown now twice on the Starlink aircraft uh with the with SAS. Um, I of course, but in the fortunate situation that it's uh that I know which aircraft uh has it and how to how to log on. We're still in the test phase, but uh we're gonna start soon roll it uh roll it out. About 12 aircraft a month from now until the uh the summer peak. Um strong. Just just have to say, we were live on Norwegian television, uh, and it comes out just when you look at it on TV, it is as if you're working from home somewhere. And uh it just it's incredible, really incredible.
SPEAKER_01It's probably in in inspiring also. There's another airline that uh often do their intros when you're embarking the flight with. Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi system is closed off on this flight.
SPEAKER_00I've heard it sufficient amount of times to I don't I'm not sure there is a Wi-Fi system on that plane, even, but um Well, what I what I we we've had long discussions about that because a lot of I I think the current Wi-Fi that we're having is actually already superior to many other airlines in Europe anyway. Um, and so why do we call it out when it doesn't work? And and so should we just say nothing? Because I flew on a uh particular German um uh airline uh the other day, and and they don't have anything in not not even uh uh charging in the seas. I uh we should probably cut this. This is this is probably too much. It's probably too much. Um but but but but the point is why why do we even it it comes back to one of those Scandinavian values, right? It's transparency, it's just honesty. Look, we don't have Wi-Fi today. Um terribly sorry. Um in a matter of months, 60 aircraft, end of the year, all of our SAS aircraft. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so speaking about that, there's a rollout plan for for for Starlink now. But um, and I think this has been one of the media's favorite questions for you. So I'm I'm gonna divide divide it into two. All right. Uh the future outlook. And I think the vision of two might be future outlook. Where do you see SAS in five, 10 years? And then second part of that question is where do you see the experience of air travel evolving in five, 10 years? Yeah. I think the the media's question is probably more into does it still have an SAS logo on? Yeah. Five, ten years from now, sunny is right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So let's let's start with that. It is surprising to me that that question keeps on popping up. Okay, let's break it down. Air France bought KLM in 2004, it's 2026. Has the KLM brand disappeared? Not really. Probably strong as ever. So let's build on that. The KLM network has grown 63% since 2004. So KLM has never been bigger, stronger, more relevant to its customers than it is today. Iberia was bought by um uh by British Airways in 2010, but Iberia's not bigger, never been bigger than it is today. Uh Swiss, Austrian, still in existence, right? So come on. Um I think we're really beyond that, beyond that point, right? Being part of a big airline group in Europe will support us, will strengthen us, we can drive synergies, you can, of course, do all sorts of things in back office that as a customer you won't really notice, and that just will make us healthier. Um, right. So, um, and yes, let's be clear here because otherwise people are gonna say, oh, but he didn't say that the brand will survive. The brand will survive, right? Absolutely, SAS will be there. And I dare to say that out of the three, Airfront SKLM, and SAS, SAS will see the strongest growth at its hubs, multiple countries, certainly in Copenhagen, out of the three airlines.
SPEAKER_01Well, Copenhagen is an amazing airport, also.
SPEAKER_00And and and let's be let's be very clear there, right? Copenhagen is an amazing airport, and that's of course part of what the Airfront SKLM group is buying into, not least because Kippel Airport, Amsterdam, is full. It's completely slot constrained. There is no room for further growth.
SPEAKER_01And what about the experience of air traveling five, ten years out? You and I spoke briefly early on about in-flight entertainment. I assume there's many other things that you're considering on an ongoing basis for for like future air travel.
SPEAKER_00I always think that a couple of things will come together. Um I was hoping for self-driving cars to take on or to take off. Uh to take off a bit faster than what they're really doing. I read Uber, uh Dana saying this morning that it's probably still gonna take 10 or 20 years. But there's no autonomous air travel coming up anytime soon. No, not anytime soon, but at some point in the future, but certainly not five or ten years, and I'm not gonna uh see that in my professional lifetime. But but what you I think you will see is as soon as we as humans get more used to self-driving technology, self-filling fridges, self-ordering, I don't know what around us. Um, and two, military technology and military drone technology will develop further, then I do think you're gonna see a convergence of those two things at some point into flying. But that will be one of the last frontiers, and again, not in my professional lifetime. I think why I why I started with that self-driving technology is um right now, and I think you alluded to it somewhere in the beginning, uh, we are in this metal tube for up to 15 hours. But the experience, apart from maybe a business class and economy class, is pretty much the same, uh homogeneous for everyone on board of that aircraft. But you could start, of course, to think of mood lighting and personalized lighting, personalized settings that you have in your profile. Um, right. And so, really, from personalized food experiences, personalized color, uh, personalized lighting, personalized everything on board in that delivery, I think will be will be bigger. I still think that luxury will make its way back in again, uh, right, the same way as we're doing at the moment with, for instance, the reintroduction of European business laws.
SPEAKER_01What about the aircraft as a whole? So there's a hard aerospace now working on electric. There's a I lost the name of it. There's an um a company in the US working on a new Concorde style. Boom. Yeah, boom, yeah. I saw the prototyping of the small boom jet they were flying around the US. Do you think we're gonna see that? Uh probably not anytime soon, but there's it seems like there's a lot of development on new types of aircraft.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's at least new development. I I um yet have to be convinced uh on some of that. Um propulsion techniques. Uh look, one of the ones I was really hoping that they were gonna be successful, and I still am, is Airbus under hydrogen aircraft. Uh Airbus has an RD budget that far supersedes everyone we know, right? Apart maybe from a few US companies. But if Airbus um can't make zero-based technology or at least hydrogen work, then it's really back to the drawing uh drawing board. Um, they have postponed the introduction of their hydrogen aircraft by a couple of years. They said 2035. Um now at least I think it's gonna be 2040. Uh again, that will surely um long time frame. Yeah, and push it out of my working life, right? That's that's a shame. Uh so yeah, there's a lot of attention on it. There's a lot of people trying. Next month, uh, beta technologies are bringing their aircraft to uh that's a scoop, by the way, uh, to Stockholm. Uh I don't think I should have announced that, but anyway, here you go. Uh you're welcome. Um and and so that's also one where we're really trying to see what is going on. So yeah, exciting space. Uh, and I really hope that someone will crack the code. But I don't think yeah, that's that's that's longer journeys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Doing what I at least see as a transformation of this iconic brand. Um would be great to hear if you can if you can offer advice for people, you know, rebuilding brands. Uh, because I think in Scandinavia we've seen quite a few rebirths of smaller brands, mid-site brands. Um, you probably did it with most pressure from uh governments to all the Scandinavian countries to to creditors, to colleagues, etc. So what you know, how do you keep a steady hand?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I find that always uh I find it always difficult because because it sounds like um it it really sounds like we know everything and and uh and and we did a great job, I think. Let's see in five or ten years, right, where we stand. Um so so uh uh yeah. Um here is what we did, right? Let's just put it like that. And then people can figure out whether that works for them or not. I think it for us we knew what we wanted to achieve. And that was a multiple multifaceted kind of approach. It was the change of ownership. Very important to get to that consolidation of SAS into a bigger European airline family. Once you have that on your mind, then a lot of things will fall into place. Two, the relevancy of the airline, right? How can you make the airline more relevant again in its space to its consumers? So network growth, how can you build the hub growth in Copenhagen? For that you need the metal. So again, once you decide that you do not want to shrink, or you or you maybe you do want to shrink, whatever, right? I mean, maybe you want to grow. Once you know what you want to achieve there, then again a lot of things will fall into place. Three, customer obsession. Once you have determined that you really want NPS to be your driver, then again, a lot of things will fall into place. And you can reverse engineer your NPS to figure out where you need investments and where you want to make investments. And for us, that has, for instance, been on that on-time performance, right? Um, out of 655 airlines last year, we ended up as number three in the world, right? So well, well done on on everybody. So yeah, know what you want to achieve and on multiple fronts. Um be obsessed, I think. And and I I I we know each other a bit, and I think most founders are, uh, right. I'm clearly not a founder, but I do, I think, manage it as if it's really our own shop, right? If it's if it's our own entity. Um and and just seek constant feedback from our colleagues, from the market, from everywhere, just all sorts of inputs that we that we took along the way. You can always dismiss them in the end, right? But um, but what we did we did always listen to what people had to say. Um, yeah, and then uh for us point number four was uh very much on execution, right? Just make sure that it's I I think our execution has really been strong. Uh if I complement the theme for for lots of things, then definitely this is one of them, because not only did we do did we do the financial restructuring, uh, which other airlines have done and other companies have done, but we threw in quite some difficult things in the mix there, not least changing 27 years of Star Alliance into Sky Theme, just on top of it, right? I mean, just just for the fun of it, you know what, we're gonna do that at the same time. Um, and then that whole operational work at the same time, which also required IT investments and required, of course, customer investments. Then what you know was now let's reintroduce European business class that we didn't have for, I don't know, 12 years or something. So it's we haven't made it easier on ourselves, and we did really um yeah, lots of things at the same time.
SPEAKER_01I think I I I like that as final remarks. I think being a really crisp and transparent on where you want to go, what you want to achieve, awesome. Customer obsession should be, you know, the um foundation of any business, but ability to execute, that's where it all starts, right? So I think and uh and look what you guys have been pulling off the last couple of years looks amazing. Uh again, I want to wrap up appreciating your visit here to the studio. It was a pleasure having you. Pretty, pretty cool studio, by the way. Well done. Yeah, it's a good setup. Yeah, and I'm looking forward uh to my very next uh SAS flight, which is always a pleasure. But Anko Man, thank you for coming by. Thank you very much for the invite. Seriously.