Four months after a rocky first attempt to launch Mumbai flights, SAS is preparing to begin its India operations again in October. SAS will become at least the tenth foreign airline in three years to enter or make a substantial return to India's rapidly expanding international aviation market, with 32.83 million recorded international departures in 2025, up 6.3% year-on-year. Adding 69,000 annual seats between Mumbai and Copenhagen, SAS hopes to feed Indian travellers into the Scandic region but also position Copenhagen into a hub for India’s large North American leisure, VFR and business traveller base.
SAS Is Increasingly Positioning Copenhagen as a Transit Hub
SAS has increasingly concentrated its international network at Copenhagen since 2024 when it formally identified the airport as its main hub for international travel.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: CPH
For Summer 2026, the airline planned a 20% increase in seat capacity from Copenhagen while creating 50% more connecting opportunities. A year earlier, its Summer 2025 changes had already created 70% more connection opportunities across 122 destinations, by timing arrivals and departures to create a viable hub and spoke model. Approximately 28% of SAS’ passengers are now transit passengers through CPH in Q1 2026, up from just under 18% in 2023.
The demand pool for SAS is relatively large. India recorded 126,313 trips to Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 2024, according to the Ministry of Tourism data. SAS’ relatively dense network in the Scandic region, connecting Copenhagen to Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Gothenburg amongst numerous other Scandinavian cities will help SAS capitalise on that demand.
There also is the larger pool of around 3.88 million European trips that Indians undertake every year. SAS already flies 4x daily to Paris, 2x to Frankfurt and with its Air France-KLM codeshare through the SkyTeam network, is able to connect passengers from Copenhagen into a lot many more European cities to make Copenhagen a credible hub for Indian outbound passengers.
North American Connectivity Is the Major Prize
Roughly 8 million travellers flew between India and North America in 2024, up about 20% from the 2019 pre-pandemic number. And this is where SAS wants to make its major play. The US alone is a roughly six-million-passenger annual market from India, yet only around 1.8 million passengers flew nonstop between the two countries in 2024. That leaves more than four million journeys already flowing through intermediate hubs — precisely the traffic Copenhagen will be competing to capture.
From Copenhagen, SAS already flies to North American cities including Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Seattle, while Toronto provides a Canadian link. SAS has also specifically highlighted New York, Boston and Toronto as onward markets for passengers using the Mumbai service.
Its Delta codeshare extends that reach further, giving SAS customers access to more than 150 destinations in North America through Delta hubs including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: SAS
As direct connectivity has lagged post war, with American airlines withdrawing post the Russian airspace closure, transit hubs like the Middle East, and Lufthansa have become increasingly important for the India-America air traffic. SAS’ geographical advantage means lower flight durations, and it’s codeshares with Delta and SkyTeam mean a larger number of routes and more dense connections into major American cities. The proposition for Indian passengers can therefore extend from Mumbai through Copenhagen into Scandinavia or North America, with Delta potentially carrying some travellers onward to secondary North American cities.
The New Flight Timings Leave New York and Toronto Vulnerable
SAS’ original announcement when it first attempted flights in July mentioned “New York, Boston and Toronto” as important connections from Mumbai. It’s revised August relaunch announcement again stressed on these routes as key onward destinations. However, the new flight timings make the connections as they are currently timed unviable and may mean SAS missing out on a major chunk of India’s American demand pool.
When SAS first announced Mumbai in June 2025, SK970 was scheduled to leave Mumbai at 06:00 IST and reach Copenhagen at 11:45 CEST. SAS said those timings were designed for onward connections to Scandinavia, Europe and North America. The relaunched schedule is 30 minutes later: SK970 now departs Mumbai at 06:30 IST and arrives in Copenhagen at 12:15 local time CET The revised schedule of SAS now means only a 40-minute connection time between the Mumbai flight arrival and the departures to New York and Newark and only a 35-minute connecting time to Toronto. These were exactly the routes that SAS advertised as some of the marquee connecting flights, and they now sit below the SAS standard guidance of 45 minutes Minimum Connection Time (MCT). Boston and Chicago still sit slightly more comfortably, with Boston leaving around 60 minutes after the Mumbai flight arrival and Chicago more than 2 hours after.
It remains to be seen whether SAS will retime some of its New York departures, or will it make a case exception to connect the Mumbai and New York flights. However, as it currently stands, it does not seem likely that with the revised flight timings SAS is operating out of Mumbai, the connections to New York and Toronto are serviceable. In this context, it is interesting to see which Mumbai – North America itineraries SAS actually makes available once the winter schedule begins and on which operating days.
The Real Test of the Mumbai Route
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: SAS
Mumbai will be an early test of whether SAS can extend Copenhagen's growing hub role into a large new source market. If the airline can consistently pull passengers from India into its Scandinavian and transatlantic network, five weekly flights could eventually support higher frequencies and make Copenhagen a more credible alternative to the European and Gulf hubs Indians already use.
Much will depend on what happens after passengers land in Copenhagen. Competitive fares and a large network will help, but Indian agents and TMCs ultimately need connections that work reliably in the booking flow.
The opportunity for SAS therefore stretches well beyond filling 266 seats five times a week. A successful Mumbai route would show that the Copenhagen hub SAS has spent two years rebuilding can reach into India and redistribute that demand across a much wider network. October will begin to show whether Indian traffic can play that role.