SWEDEN’s national passenger operator SJ has been caught up in a public ageism row after the board of SJ decided to replace its much-criticised CEO, Monica Lingegård, with effect from February 28 2026.
Lingegård has been heavily criticised for her performance almost ever since she took the helm at SJ in 2020. While she has managed to return SJ to profit after losses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, she has failed to remedy such things as a shortage of trains for long-distance services and falling punctuality.
In 2021, for example, hundreds of trains were cancelled after SJ tried to introduce a new scheduling system only one month before that year’s Christmas and New Year peak traffic period. In 2024, Lingegård admitted publicly that the situation had become “almost a national breakdown” after passenger train delays had been the worst for 14 years. In the meantime, SJ’s customer satisfaction has plummeted to the lowest among all long-distance passenger operators, whether by rail, air, or road.
Lingegård has also faced harsh internal criticism for allegedly having an authoritarian leadership style and for recruiting friends to top positions at SJ. These issues led to four internal investigations, the results of which have mostly been withheld.
People familiar with the matter have told the news agency TT that SJ’s board has tried unsuccessfully to persuade Lingegård to step down voluntarily, and eventually, according to leaked official documents seen by the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the government ran out of patience and pressured SJ into firing her.
However, as her replacement was announced in late August, the official reason given by SJ was not dissatisfaction with her work, but that SJ needed new leadership ahead of its SKr 19bn ($US 2bn) investment in new trains and a 50% increase in services by 2030.
“We need a CEO who is able to have a perspective of five to seven years, and all you have to do is to look at Monica’s birth certificate to realise that there will be a change of CEOs during this period,” SJ’s chairman Kenneth Bengtsson told the daily Dagens Industri.
Bengtsson’s insinuation that Lingegård would be too old led to an outcry. The Swedish media were quick to point out that the person who will replace her, Jonas Abrahamsson, is only four and a half years her junior – and that Bengtsson himself is one year her senior.
“This is a very outdated view of age,” a spokesman for the trade union Ledarna said, while the daily Aftonbladet’s political chief editor Anders Lindberg wrote in an editorial that “Sweden has a sick sense of age especially where women are being discarded early.”
Following complaints, the Discrimination Ombudsman says it might investigate the matter, ostensibly for breach of the Discrimination Act.
Bengtsson has subsequently apologised for his remarks, while Lingegård says she want to continue as CEO. “I will make sure to deliver and continue our important agenda for change,” she told Dagens Nyheter.
Meanwhile, Abrahamsson been criticised for poor performance in his current position as CEO of Swedavia, which operates 10 of Sweden’s busiest airports. One of the issues raised on his watch concerns repeated technical problems at Stockholm Arlanda airport which led to long delays at check-in causing passengers to miss their flights.
Nevertheless, Abrahamsson is expected to take over as CEO of SJ on March 1 2026, and Lingegård will remain in office until then, after which she will receive a SKr 6.6m severance package.
