SAS Scandinavian Airlines, President & CEO, Anko van der Werff at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit World 2025
SAS Scandinavian Airlines, President & CEO, Anko van der Werff spoke to CAPA TV at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit World 2025, hosted in Lisbon, about latest industry trends and company developments.
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Transcript
Anko van der Werff:I have to say that I'm not just with Air France-KLM, but the whole transition to SkyTeam has been marvelous for us. We already, for instance, do more earn and burn on SkyTeam airlines than we did after 27 years with Star, so that tells you really something. Our passengers are finding their way in the paths of SkyTeam, quite happy. And then specifically to Air France-KLM, we hope that the European Commission somewhere in the second half of 2026 will give us the authorization, will bless the new setup, right, where Air France-KLM becomes the majority owner of SAS. And yeah, second half of 2026. Oh, that's hundreds, hundreds of little things, really just changing It's too detailed, but let's go for the big buckets. One, lots of data. We've set up all the data in one cluster. So really, one, having the data. 2, centralizing that data. 3, we have a centralized team now looking at it. And 4, we've made that team accountable. And none of that is rocket science. None of that is rocket science. But the way I think we're using it It's become our— it's, I don't know, it's almost a religion. It really is. And so every day we go through every single minute of delays. Why did it happen? What can we learn? How can we do better tomorrow? And it's just been wonderful to see the team perform on that. Jason Mahoney and his team have done an absolute outstanding job, but it's been dozens and dozens of people in the business. Really, hats off to all of them. Well, I think the key challenge will be for the world to just remain calm. And if that doesn't happen? If that doesn't happen, then we'll be back next year with a different story. I think the world is holding up right now. I think economies are by and large fine. Exchange rates are fine. Oil price fuel is of course coming down. I think there's lots to like at the moment. And so as long as things don't derail, famous last words, then I think we're in for at least a very healthy 2026. Yeah, I know it's a lot to ask for in the whole geopolitical setting of today, but right now we feel good about 2026. Now, I think what you guys bring out is always a very, very good selection of speakers. I'm grateful and honored to be one myself this year, but it was really great to be on stage. Campbell, Martin, there's so many other people here. Alex Cruz, of course. So it's really about the quality, I think, of the speakers. It's the quality of the audience. We have a lot of bilaterals. There's a lot of people waiting for me right now. So a lot of meetings that I can have on the side as well. It's a very efficient day or a couple of days packed into a couple.
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