The Nordic airline, Scandinavian Airline(SAS), is looking to modernize a good portion of its current fleet of 737 and MD-80 aircraft and Bombardier is reportedly favored to win with its CS300. 

SAS owns a pretty varied fleet which includes both Airbus A320 series aircraft as well as old and new generation 737s (including the unpopular 737-600).  A more harmonized fleet would help.

The problem is, SAS doesn’t necessarily need aircraft that are necessarily big players on medium haul routes.  While it does need some higher capacity aircraft for leisure destinations, it needs smaller capacity aircraft in bigger numbers for frequency.

The CS300 has a nominal maximum range of at least 2200nm and that’s enough for SAS’s world in Europe.  That would allow them to serve all of europe from their hubs of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo or any of their other focus cities as well.  Take a look at what 1900nm range gets you from Stockholm by clicking HERE.

It’s notable that this airline is the only airline that found a real use for the 737-600 and bought 28 of them.  They also have a number of -500 models as well.

The Cs300 would probably fit well into their strategy and offer them a light aircraft with good capacity for flying frequency in their stronghold(s).   They would get an efficient engine for this kind of flying as well.

My guess is that the Boeing aircraft will go away completely over time and SAS will buy more Airbus aircraft for routes requiring more capacity.   Boeing just doesn’t have anything in its product line up that fits the SAS model.

A lot of people believe the CS300 isn’t going anywhere and even I wondered but it seems to me that this might be just the kind of niche Bombardier needs to serve.

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