It is first renovating the jets it flies to Asia with a spiffy new business class, replete with seats that turn into beds. The inaugural flight of the refurbished class will leave Copenhagen and arrive in Bangkok on March 3.

In all, the company is giving makeovers to 11 aircraft on its Asian and North American routes. All of the Asian route planes will be spruced up first.

The renovations come after the company logged another year of growth, with revenues and passenger counts increasing 6 per cent last year and 8 per cent respectively last year from 2004.

“Now we are in better shape to serve our customers,” said Hakan Olsson, director and general manger for SAS’s Southeast Asia operation, adding that its load factor on its Copenhagen-Bangkok route is 90 per cent.

“We are at capacity,” he said. “If we can get more aircraft, one option is to open a Stockholm-Bangkok route a few times a week.”

SAS, one of the only two airlines that flies from Bangkok to Copenha-gen, flies the route six times a week.

Last year, it started flying more routes to China, Hong Kong and Japan but ceased its Bangkok-Singapore route. It has ruled out flying direct from Scandinavia to Singapore because the A340 the company flies does not carry enough fuel to make that trip, which is two hours longer than the one to Bangkok.

Thai Airways International services the route with seven flights a week. SAS sells an economy-class Bangkok-Copenhagen round-trip ticket for B34,000 and Bt100,000 for business class. THAI quotes a similar price, but Olsson said that SAS had a better business class than THAI.

Olsson said Scandinavian tourists were returning to Thailand and their numbers now exceeded pre-tsunami levels, making the Scandinavian region the second-largest tourism market for Thailand in Europe.

Miss Thailand World 2005 Sirinda Jansen, who is half Danish, was on hand yesterday as a presenter for SAS.

Suchat Sritama

The Nation