The curious case of domestic flights in Sweden

The curious case of domestic flights in Sweden

The biggest airlines in Sweden, when it comes to domestic routes, are Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Norwegian and BRA ("Braathens Regional Airlines"). SAS and Norwegian obviously operate international flights as well, whereas BRA mainly fly domestic routes in Sweden.

Then there are a couple of smaller airlines, but recently, one of them went bankrupt. Nextjet operated a number of domestic routes, most of them from Stockholm (ARN) to small or middle-sized towns in areas not easily accessible.

The thing with most of these routes is that the Swedish government has issued a "traffic duty" for these routes. These small towns (or in some cases villages) must have flight connections, as they are located in areas which are not as accessible as other places in Sweden.

When Nextjet went bankrupt, the government therefore had to secure a deal with a new airline to fly two of these routes. Only one airline submitted a bid. Amapola is mainly a cargo company, and they operate all airmail flights in Sweden since 2005. They didn't really want to submit a bid for these unprofitable passenger routes, but eventually did, and Swedish newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren has published some interesting numbers about this deal.

Nextjet were to get €3,7 million for operating these two routes during all of 2018. Amapola now get €8,2 million for seven months (July-January), for the same routes. Amapola have brought in subcontractors, so an Estonian airline (Nyxair, which there is virtually no information about on the Internet) will fly one of the routes, whereas Polish airline Sprint Air will fly the other one, Stockholm-Hemavan.

The Hemavan route alone costs the Swedish government a whopping €15,400 a day. Now, is this a place that really needs this route? According to Wikipedia, Hemavan has a population of 278. Not 278,000. 278. Two, seven, eight. Sure, there are some nice surroundings suitable for hiking during the summer, and skiing during winter. But it still seems irresponsible to shell out these amounts of money for a town with less than 300 inhabitants. It's also located less than 100 kilometers from the Norwegian city Mo i Rana with almost 20,000 inhabitants and a significantly bigger airport.

What is the upside to this?
An upside to the weird situation regarding domestic flights in Sweden is the opportunity to fly new airlines and some rare birds that are used on these routes. A few weeks ago, I flew to Trollhättan (THN) on a Fokker 50, and my dad and I will visit both Hemavan (HMV) and Sveg (EVG) in a couple of weeks, getting to try both the Saab 340 and the Jetstream 32 aircraft. (Trip reports will follow, naturally.)

The downside?
To me, keeping these traffic duty routes alive is irresponsible both from an environmental and economical point of view. The flights are rarely fully booked, but fly half-empty. It also seems contrary to the air tax that the government introduced earlier this year in order to make people travel less by air.

In my opinion, cutting these routes would be the responsible thing to do (even if that means that AvGeeks like me won't get to fly the Saab 340). That is basically what's happening in the USA with the "Essential Air Service" program that the Trump administration wants to eliminate. Because of the support from the government, airlines can sometimes make a profit by flying empty planes, just because there has to be an airline operating that certain route. Completely insane, if you ask me. But there are reports that the Trump administration will be cutting the subsidies by 40 % in 2019, and that certain airports are losing the EAS privilege. Now, I'm guessing the dubious president is less concerned with the environment than the dollars, but it's still a good move, in my opinion.

However, it looks like the traffic duty routes will continue in Sweden. The government has recently renewed the traffic duty, as well as added a new route: Stockholm-Kramfors. Population in Kramfors: 6700. Distance to Sundsvall and Örnsköldsvik, with their own airports: 97 and 110 kilometers respectively.