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Air France-KLM eyeing SAS: report

French airline Air France-KLM is considering taking a stake in troubled Scandinavian airline SAS, according to French media reports.

Published: 14 January 2009 09:03 CET

On Monday, the French airline announced it was taking a 25 percent in Italian airline Alitalia, but is apparently still on the lookout for other potential deals.

“SAS has begun an informal consultation process and has contacted us,” an internal Air France-KLM source told the French daily La Tribune, according to the Reuters news agency.

Officials from Air France-KLM were unavailable for comment, and SAS representatives refused to elaborate on the report.

“We confirm, as we have done earlier, that we are in a process where we are looking at structural possibilities, that discussions are ongoing concerning structural measures,” SAS spokesperson Elisabeth Manzi told Reuters.

Back in September, Reuters had reported that German airline Lufthansa was interested in buying SAS, which has continued to struggle in the face of low-cost rival airlines.

In December, SAS sold off its stake in Spanair, and earlier in the week the airline announced a 12.5 percent drop in December passenger traffic from 2007 to 2008.

SAS

‘We agree to disagree’: Still no progress in marathon SAS strike talks

By lunchtime on Friday, talks between the Scandinavian airline SAS and unions representing striking pilots were still stuck on "difficult issues".

Published: 15 July 2022 15:37 CEST
'We agree to disagree': Still no progress in marathon SAS strike talks

“We agree that we disagree,” Roger Klokset, from the Norwegian pilots’ union, said at lunchtime outside the headquarters of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in Stockholm, where talks are taking place. “We are still working to find a solution, and so long as there is still some point in continuing negotiations, we will do that.” 

Mats Ruland, a mediator for the Norwegian government, said that there were “still several difficult issues which need to be solved”. 

At 1pm on Friday, the two sides took a short break from the talks for lunch, after starting at 9am. On Thursday, they negotiated for 15 hours, breaking off at 1am on Friday morning. 

READ ALSO: What’s the latest on the SAS plane strike?

Marianne Hernæs, SAS’s negotiator on Friday told journalists she was tired after sitting at the negotiating table long into the night. 

“We need to find a model where we can meet in the middle and which can ensure that we pull in the income that we are dependent on,” she said. 

Klokset said that there was “a good atmosphere” in the talks, and that the unions were sticking together to represent their members.

“I think we’ve been extremely flexible so far. It’s ‘out of this world’,’ said Henrik Thyregod, with the Danish pilots’ union. 

“This could have been solved back in December if SAS had not made unreasonable demands on the pilots,” Klokset added. 

The strike, which is now in its 12th day, has cost SAS up to 130m kronor a day, with 2,550 flights cancelled by Thursday, affecting 270,000 passengers. 

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