The airline underestimated its costs and achieved an insufficient load factor, thus making services unprofitable.

After operations ended, SAS continued to use Snowflake as a brand for discounted tickets to European destinations.

The models of Ryanair and SAS' partner airline Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings were examined.

SAS had just bought its main Norwegian competitor, Braathens, and had also significantly reduced Swedish domestic competition through the purchase of Linjeflyg.

[1] The SAS Group announced plans for the airline on 10 December 2002, at the time giving it the provisional name Scandinavian Light.

The company stated that they aimed to create a low-cost airline which would focus on the leisure holiday market and on Mediterranean destinations.

It considered the newly formed SAS Braathens to be a lost-cost carrier and did not see the need for differentiation in the Norwegian market.

[4] The first services were from Stockholm to Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Bologna, Budapest, Dublin, Istanbul, Málaga, Nice, Prague and Rome.

From Copenhagen the airline's first flights were to Alicante, Athens, Bologna, Lisbon, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, Pristina and Sarajevo.

[6] Snowflake then announced three new destinations from Stockholm from the start of the winter program in October: Lyon, Beograd and Beirut.

From Stockholm services were introduced to Ankara, Inverness, Lisbon, Palma de Mallorca, Split, Skope and Valletta.

Snowflake announced large cutbacks to the winter schedule, and planned to only operate four services: to Athens, Istanbul, Nice and Rome.

With the ticket prices based on cost savings which never materialized, the airline failed to operate with a profit.

They had a lower base price, additional services, including in-flight meals cost extra.

[citation needed] All aircraft were owned and operated by Scandinavian Airlines, but retained a distinctive livery with a lemon-colored vertical stabilizer and otherwise white body.

[citation needed] Snowflake operated flights to a series of destinations from its bases in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

[23] To avoid cannibalizing customers from Scandinavian Airlines, Snowflake only flew to destinations not served by the other part of the group.

This included several popular tourist destinations, such as London and Paris, which also attracted a large share of business travelers.