SAS planes are parked at Oslo Gardermoen Airport, while Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots are on strike in Norway on July 4, 2022. Beate Oma Dahle / NTB via REUTERS
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STOCKHOLM, July 17 (Reuters) – Scandinavian airline SAS (SAS.ST) and striking pilots’ unions will resume negotiations on Monday, public broadcaster NRK said after failing to reach new collective agreements during the weekend.
Most SAS pilots in Sweden, Denmark and Norway left on July 4 after talks about conditions related to the company’s rescue plan collapsed. The parties returned last Wednesday to the negotiating table in the Swedish capital. Read more
“We are now going home after 37 hours to get some sleep,” Henrik Thyregod, head of the Danish pilots ’union, said as he left the Stockholm site where negotiations are being held, NRK reported.
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Norwegian pilots union representative Roger Klokset had said Sunday before the parties could have reached an agreement overnight.
“Maybe. But I don’t know if there will still be an agreement,” he said.
SAS, whose main owners are Sweden and Denmark, has been struggling for years to compete with low-cost competition before the pandemic shattered the industry. It must attract new investors and secure bridge financing, saying it must first reduce costs to achieve these goals.
Pilots employed at the SAS Scandinavia subsidiary of the 75-year-old carrier said last week that they would accept limited wage cuts and less favorable conditions, but SAS said the concessions offered were not enough to carry out a rescue plan. announced in February. Read more
The unions are also calling for pilots eliminated during the pandemic to be re-hired at SAS Scandinavia instead of having to compete with external applicants for less attractive jobs at SAS Link, recently created and SAS Connect, with its to Ireland.
On Saturday, a mediator said the parties had moved forward, but major issues had yet to be resolved. Read more
The airline said Thursday that the strike had caused 2,550 flight cancellations, affecting 270,000 passengers and costing it between $ 94 million and $ 123 million. The Swedish government has said it will not provide any more cash.
As of Sunday, 164 SAS flights, or 62% of those scheduled, were canceled, according to the FlightAware flight tracking platform. SAS Link and SAS Connect drivers are not on strike.
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Report by Helena Soderpalm, Anna Ringstrom and Johan Ahlander, Editing by David Goodman and Frank Jack Daniel
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