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Norwegian cancels all flights in Scandinavia

Norwegian Air Shuttle is to cancel all flights in Norway, Sweden and Denmark on Wednesday, leaving some 35,000 passengers stranded, in a dramatic escalation of its ongoing dispute with pilots.

Published: 3 March 2015 21:03 CET

Norwegian cancels all flights in Scandinavia

Two Norwegian aircraft parked at Oslo Airport on Sunday evening. Photo: Jon Olav Nesvold/NTB scanpix

"Despite repeated attempts by management to engage in constructive discussions to prevent a hardening of the strike, dialogue was was not possible," the Norwegian airline said in a statement on Tuesday night.

"This unfortunately leads to the cancellation of all domestic flights in Norway, Sweden and Denmark tomorrow, Wednesday, March 4th. All departures between Scandinavian capitals are also canceled."

As many as 700 of Norwegian's pilots are set to go on strike on Wednesday, as all the company's Norwegian and Swedish pilots join the strike that began on Saturday, following more than three months of fruitless negotiations over pay and conditions.

The airline on Tuesday said it would also send as many as 800 cabin staff home without pay as it institutes its threatened lockout of workers.

"It goes without saying that if the pilots are not going to work, we have to lay off the crew," press spokesman Lasse Sandakerveien-Nielsen said. "There is talk of up to 800."

Delays and cancellations have affected a small number of flights in Norway and internationally since 70 pilots from the company's Norway subsidiary went on strike on Saturday.

As well as its flights in Scandinavia, eleven international flights to Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Latvia, had also been cancelled by Wednesday morning, according to Norway's VG newspaper.

Pilots based in Finland and Spain could be brought in if the strike expands, Norwegian has said.

On Monday the company’s board held a six-hour emergency meeting, but, contrary to media reports on Sunday night, the board did not use the meeting to declare its Norwegian subsidiary bankrupt.

Norwegian is Scandinavia’s third-largest airline and has around 4,500 employees. Its parent company Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) is partly owned by subsidiaries in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Singapore.

The company has set up a phone number in Norway where passengers whose flights have been cancelled can rebook tickets and request refunds.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of €420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of €2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some €200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of €2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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