SAS Group

SAS AB (Scandinavian Airlines System Aktiebolag), trading as SAS Group, is an airline holding company headquartered in the SAS Frösundavik Office Building in Solna Municipality, Sweden. It is the owner of the airlines Scandinavian Airlines and SAS Connect. SAS once owned 19.9% of the now defunct Spanish airline Spanair as well as shares in Estonian Air and Skyways Express. SAS Group is partially owned by the governments of Sweden and Denmark with a 14.82% and 14.24% holding, respectively. The remaining 70.92% is held by private shareholders, of which Foundation Asset Management owns 6.50%. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

The conglomerate was founded in 1951 as a merger between the three Scandinavian flag carriers Aerotransport (ABA—Sweden), Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL—Denmark), and Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL—Norway), after the three had been cooperating on international routes since 1946. Until 2001, the three national companies owned a fixed share of the SAS Group, after which the shares of the three companies were merged. The SAS Group previously owned the Rezidor Hotel Group (owner of the Radisson SAS brand) and Braathens and had a minority interest in bmi, airBaltic, Texas Air, Thai Airways International, and LAN Airlines. SAS was a founder of the Amadeus Computerised Reservation System and the Star Alliance, where several of the group's airlines are members. SAS runs the frequent flyer program EuroBonus.