SAS and pilots resume negotiations on Monday after 14 days of strike

SAS planes park at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport, as Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots strike, Norway, July 4, 2022. Beate Oma Dahle / NTB via REUTERS

STOCKHOLM, July 17 (Reuters) – Troubled Scandinavian airline SAS (SAS.ST) Public broadcaster NRK said the striking pilots’ unions would resume negotiations on Monday, after failing to reach new collective agreements over the weekend.

Most SAS pilots in Sweden, Denmark and Norway withdrew on July 4 after talks over the terms of the carrier’s bailout broke down. The two sides returned to the negotiating table in the Swedish capital last Wednesday. Read more

“We will now go home after 37 hours to get some sleep,” said Henrik Thiergaud, head of the Danish Pilots’ Union, as he left the Stockholm headquarters where the negotiations are taking place.

Earlier on Sunday, a representative of the Norwegian Pilots’ Union, Roger Kluxt, said the parties may have come close to reaching an agreement overnight.

“Maybe. But I don’t know if there will be an agreement yet,” he said.

SAS, whose main owners Sweden and Denmark, had been struggling to compete with low-cost competition for years before the pandemic slammed the industry. It needs to attract new investors and secure funding for the bridge, saying it must first cut costs to achieve these goals.

Pilots working for the 75-year-old airline’s subsidiary SAS Scandinavia said last week they would agree to limited pay cuts and less favorable terms, but SAS said the concessions offered were not enough to implement the bailout announced in February. Read more

Unions are also calling for pilots put off during the pandemic to be rehired at Scandinavian SAS rather than having to compete with outside applicants for jobs on less attractive terms at the recently established SAS Link and Ireland-based SAS Connect.

On Saturday, a mediator said the two sides had made progress, but there were important unresolved issues. Read more

On Thursday, the airline said the strike caused 2,550 flight cancellations, affecting 270,000 passengers and costing between $94 million and $123 million. The Swedish government has said it will not provide more money.

For Sunday, 164 flights aboard SAS, or 62% of scheduled flights, were canceled, according to flight-tracking platform FlightAware. The pilots at SAS Link and SAS Connect are not on strike.

(cover) Helena Soderbalm, Anna Ringstrom and Johann Allander; Editing by David Goodman and Frank Jack Daniel

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