Rickard Gustafson0:00
Ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to this very special day at SAS. Today we actually write a new chapter in the history of our company, and I must admit I'm a bit nervous today to see how you will receive the beauty we have in here. We'll reveal her for you shortly, our latest addition to the family.
But I want to put today at another dimension and really reinforce the value of aviation, because the society that we share, so much of what we live in today, depends on good connectivity. Aviation plays a vital part. For more than 70 years SAS has been a backbone of this Scandinavian infrastructure, and we intend to keep it that way. But then we also need to change into the future, because without aviation we would not have the wealth and the society that we have in Scandinavia. We wouldn't have a number of fantastic global enterprises and businesses founded here, maintaining their head offices here, and reaching out to their global customers. Without aviation we wouldn't have the open society that we strive for, where people can experience a fantastic part of this globe and get inspired by other cultures.
In order for us to maintain and continue this important work, we need to transform towards a more sustainable future. That is why we at SAS take sustainability so seriously. We are determined to make the right investments to reduce our negative footprint. That's why we try to eliminate weight on board our aircraft every day. That's why we engage in partnerships for large-scale production of sustainable aviation fuels, preferably in our part of the world. And that is why we are also engaged with important players such as Airbus in their R&D activities for next-generation emission-free aircraft.
This ties back to why we are here today. In our strive to modernize our business, we have made an enormous investment in brand new, state-of-the-art aircraft. We have invested more than 5 billion US dollars into new aircraft to take us into the future. The crown jewel in our fleet, of course, is the A350 that we will reveal to you today. The A350 is an amazing piece of technology. It provides significant value for our customers. It will operate from Scandinavia to North America and to Asia, connecting Scandinavia with the rest of the world. From a crew perspective, it's also a fantastic working place with a much better environment and abilities to rest on long-haul flights.
From a technology perspective, the engineers at Airbus have really put their best brains together to create a very effective, lightweight, and fuel-efficient aircraft. With the A350 we will significantly reduce our emissions since this aircraft will replace four-engine Airbus A340s. It's really an exciting time. And on top of that, as you will also see shortly, the A350 is painted in our new livery. The new livery marks a journey towards the future where we are determined to move our company to be even more customer-focused, driving simplicity over complexity, and adding future sustainability to our equation.
So without further ado, there has been too much talking. We will shortly share with you the beauty of the A350. But before we do that, I'd like to introduce two other important guests. Starting with Christian Scherer, Chief Commercial Officer from Airbus. Welcome to you, sir.
