Why Are Some SAS Planes Registered In Ireland?

Here’s a post I wanted to write for a while, but am just getting around to. In February, I had a very fun morning planespotting at Heathrow Airport. I had a lot of fun, and got to see a few aircraft that I wasn’t expecting to see at the airport. One of these aircraft was a SAS A320neo that had flown in from Stockholm, and was about to head back. Seems perfectly normal, until I realised that the aircraft was registered in…Ireland.

Today I wanted to explore why the SAS A320neo you’re next flying could be not a Scandinavian-registered plane, but an Irish-registered one. This doesn’t affect the passenger experience at all, so if that’s what you’re interested in, you might want to read another post. However, if you’re fascinated by the aviation industry like I am, you might find this interesting.

An unexpected flag on my neighbouring SAS plane…

When I flew Swiss’ A321neo from London to Zurich, I spotted a SAS A320neo pulling up on the left side of the plane. I moved to the other side of the (empty-ish) plane to take a closer look, and went to take a photo of it – I like writing stories about different airlines, and wanted to have a photo handy in case I wanted to write about SAS.

SAS A320neo at Heathrow Airport

I then pulled up my phone to search up where this plane had come from, and where it’d be heading to. It had just come from Stockholm, and was heading back, as you’d expect from a SAS A320neo. However, I then though to myself “hm, interesting, the EI- prefix seems familiar, and I’ve never flown SAS before”.

Turns out this one-year-old A320neo was registered EI-SCG, which is an Irish prefix. You can tell where a plane is from based on its registration prefix (e.g. all UK-based planes are registered with a G- prefix, and all Hong Kong/China/Taiwan based planes are registered with a B- prefix), though you’d expect a SAS plane to have a prefix that’s either LN- (Norway), SE- (Sweden), or OY- (Denmark/Greenland).

As far as I know, SAS didn’t have a wet-lease with Aer Lingus or Ryanair (i.e. they hadn’t leased one of their aircraft out with crew and maintenance), so what was going on here?

SAS Connect – SAS’ Irish Division

With the rise of low-cost airlines in Europe, SAS was struggling to compete with the likes of Ryanair, easyJet, etc. in the early 2010s. After selling its stakes in various other companies (including bmi and airBaltic), the company came under pressure to implement greater cost-cutting measures and restructuring. SAS struggled under this pressure, and ended up having to increase work time, cut salaries by 12-20%, and alter pension and retirement plans for staff, which they were put under heavy criticism for.

At this point, other airlines had already started creating new divisions with lower operating costs. Iberia started Iberia Express in 2011, Eurowings was founded in 1993, and there were multiple airlines that had set up subsidiaries with different labour economics. However, that was not as viable a solution for SAS, where the entirety of Scandinavia was exposed to intense price pressure.

SAS Connect is not quite Iberia Express, which was just started as a low-cost subsidiary with different labour economics

SAS was flying quite regularly to the UK and Spain, and wanted a solution to minimise costs when flying to these destinations. The solution was to start an AOC (air operating certificate) in Ireland.

Now, SAS is far from the only airline that has an AOC in another country – plenty of airlines hold AOCs in more than one country. However, most other airlines do this because they want to operate from multiple countries. For example, Wizz Air is a Hungarian airline, though has an AOC in the UK, so they can operate a substantial UK-based network. However, SAS wasn’t interested in starting operations out of Ireland – even their focus countries for this new hub were the UK and Spain. So why Ireland?

Firstly, starting an airline in the UK or Spain would’ve started an overly local operation that wouldn’t have been as transferrable to other bases. Also, the UK had just voted for Brexit in 2017, which made them not the best base to obtain a new AOC at the time. Ireland also had a rich history of being an aviation leasing hub – Ryanair founder and ex-Aer Lingus executive Tony Ryan founded Guinness Peat Aviation, the firm that began the concept of aircraft leasing in the late 80s. This kickstarted the aircraft leasing industry not only in Ireland, but the entire world – perhaps a topic for a future post, though do check out Flight Formula’s video here if you’re interested. This made Ireland the perfect hub, both in terms of equipment and talent, to acquire an AOC.

Ireland was a very apt place for SAS to begin an AOC and start a new airline…only for the new airline to just lease all of their A320neos back to SAS

The airline started an Irish AOC in 2017, following Norwegian, who had a similar structure (this collapsed in 2021 when Norwegian had a major restructure). However, unlike airlines such as Iberia Express, SAS was very keen to keep “the same customer offering and appearance”. As a result, “SAS Connect” was formed to exist solely as an Irish company that leased out all of their A320s – with SAS livery and interiors – to SAS, the Scandinavian company.

These A320neos are registered with EI- prefixes. While I spotted the above A320neo at London Heathrow, the reality is that they don’t necessarily just operate to the UK and Spain, even for a majority of the time. For example, the above pictured A320neo recently flew from Copenhagen to Helsinki, Dublin, Gdansk, Umea (in Sweden), Athens, Malmo, and more.

What this means for passengers

From a cabin product standpoint, there isn’t any change – SAS intentionally set SAS Connect up to be aligned to the main brand as seamlessly as possible.

However, if you get to know the crew onboard the flight, they will be employed by SAS Connect, the Irish airline, as opposed to SAS, the Scandinavian carrier. In many cases, they may actually still be based out of Sweden or Denmark, as SAS Connect will have crew bases in SAS’ main hubs. However, they’ll be employed by an Irish airline, much like if Aer Lingus decided to start a base and hire crew based in Stockholm. This also means that their labour contracts, pay scales, seniority systems, and allowances would be based on the SAS Connect setup, not the SAS setup.

Materially this won’t make a difference for 99.9% of passengers, though if you do get chatting, you may notice some differences compared to if you were on a “mainline” SAS aircraft.

Conclusion

I spotted a SAS Connect aircraft at London Heathrow Airport, which, despite the airline brand being Scandinavian, had an Irish registration. The reason why delves into the cost structure of SAS as well as the history of aircraft leasing in Ireland, though that explains why an Irish-registered aircraft is operating your next domestic Swedish flight from Stockholm to Malmo.

I’m hoping to hop onboard one of these planes soon, just to hear my own av-geekery out.

Has anyone been on a SAS Connect flight before? Are there any hints of its Irish-ness?