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15 charter flights back to Scandinavia cancelled this weekend due to SAS pilot strike

Fifteen Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flights, which were due to fly charter tourism operator Apollo's guests back from a charter holiday this weekend have been cancelled, while others have had their holiday plans axed, as a result of the SAS pilots' strike.

Published: 10 July 2022 12:24 CEST
SAS planes
SAS planes are pictured at Arlanda airport, north of Stockholm, on March 16, 2020. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

However, there are indications that Apollo will be able to bring home up to 10,000 Scandinavian guests from Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Croatia and Turkey over the weekend, Check-in.dk reported.

This is due to the striking SAS pilots agreeing to break their strike to fly stranded tourists back to Scandinavia on the proviso that no more new guests were sent abroad.

Several holidaymakers should therefore be able to return home over the weekend with SAS operating 26 flights to 11 Norwegian airports, 14 flights to Stockholm and Gothenburg and six flights to Copenhagen.

But there are still as many as 2,500 Apollo guests who are potentially stuck abroad as their SAS flights have been cancelled.

Specifically, eight flights to Copenhagen have been cancelled from Chania (Western Crete), Gazipasa-Alanya, Karphatos, Larnaca, Lesbos, Samos and Santorini as well as a single flight to Aalborg from Chania.

SAS has also cancelled two flights from Chania and Santorini to Gothenburg, while passengers on two charter flights from Corfu and Samos to Oslo and from Chania and Split to Trondheim will also need to find other flights.

There will therefore be many Danish, Swedish and Norwegian charter tourists on holiday in Greece, Turkey or Cyprus who will be affected by the strike this weekend.

Holidays cancelled for many
Although they have managed to arrange the return of many of their customers to Scandinavia this weekend, there is still a lot of frustration directed at Apollo.

Over 10,000 passengers have had to give up their planned summer holidays after a total of 61 charter flights with SAS from Scandinavia were cancelled this weekend. 

Specifically, 30 flights from 11 airports in Norway, Oslo, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Haugesund, Bergen, Aalesund, Molde, Trondheim, Bodø, Evenes and Tromsø, respectively. 

From Sweden, nine flights have been cancelled from Stockholm-Arlanda and seven from Gothenburg, while from Denmark, 14 Apollo flights have been cancelled from Copenhagen and one from Aalborg.

Writing on LinkedIn, Leif Vase Larsen, CEO of Apollo Rejser in the Nordics, has once again called on the parties to find a solution. “Enough is enough,” the Danish CEO said.

In March this year, SAS and Apollo signed an agreement on charter flights for the summer of 2022 to a value of around DKK 700 million. 

According to the plan, there were to be flights from more than 20 airports in Scandinavia to over 30 destinations on the Mediterranean. The flights were scheduled to include some 150,000 passengers throughout the summer programme.

Around 1,000 SAS pilots from Denmark, Norway and Sweden went on strike on Monday after negotiations between them and SAS on wages and working conditions broke down. They have offered to break the strike to fly stranded passengers home.

The airline has said that each day that the strike continues, 30,000 passengers will be affected. 

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Member comments

  1. Still no mention of Svalbard? SAS is the primary airline to get to and from here so there’s a lot of people stuck and unsure of how to get off the island.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Here’s what you need to know about travel in Denmark in the summer of 2024

July 1st marks the official start of school holidays in Denmark, so on the preceding weekend the roads will be chock-a-block with summer traffic. Here's what you need to know about travel this summer.

Published: 25 June 2024 14:44 CEST
Here's what you need to know about travel in Denmark in the summer of 2024

Roads 

The Danish Road Directorate is predicting a surge in traffic starting the moment “the bell rings in the country’s schools on Friday afternoon”. 

“Many have probably already packed the car with beach blankets and swimwear and ticked off the calendar for the exact day when they have planned to drive to a holiday home, to the beach or south down through Europe,” the directorate says in its summer traffic guide. 

Summer traffic will start from 2pm on Friday June 28th, with the directorate warning of “heavy traffic and a risk of minor traffic jams”, growing to a peak on Saturday June 29th when the directorate is warning of a “significant risk of traffic jams and longer journey times”. 

On Sunday, June 30th, the peak will subside to the same levels as on Friday 28th. The pattern will then be repeated on Saturday July 6th (very heavy traffic) and Sunday July 7th (quite heavy), and Saturday July 13th (very heavy) and Sunday July 14th (quite heavy), as people return from weeks off or set off late. 

The peak of return traffic will come on Saturday August 10th and Sunday August 11th, when the directorate is again warning of a “significant risk of traffic jams and longer journey times”. 

You can see worst dates here on the roads directorate’s traffic light chart. 

Source: Danish Roads Directorate

Where will the summer traffic hotspots be? 

Traffic will be particularly bad on the E20 motorway between Køge, south of Copenhagen, and then across the Great Belt Bridge, and also on the E20 through the western half of Funen.

It will also be bad on the E45 motorway around Kolding and at the border with Germany. 

The directorate also expects heavy traffic to and from the ferry ports towards Germany at Rødby and Gedser as well as the E45 between Aarhus Nord and Skærup.

READ ALSO: How to decode Denmark’s old-fashioned motorway names

There will also be traffic on the weekend changeover days on roads to and from Denmark’s most popular coastal holiday areas. 

The roads directorate is warning particular of Route 21 to and from Sjællands Odde, Route 16 north of Hillerød, Route 11 along the west coast of Jutland, Route 55 at Løkken and Blokhus and Route 40 to and from Skagen.

Trains 

Up until Sunday 25 August, Denmark’s rail track operator Banedanmark is upgrading the tracks between Copenhagen, Slagelse and Odense, leading to changed departure times and longer journey times. The track work will also affect EuroCity trains to Hamburg from Copenhagen. 

Denmark’s train operator DSB recommends that travellers check the planned departure and travel times on the Rejseplanen app on the day before their departure. 

Flights 

Denmark’s airports are likely to be busier than usual as tourists stream in and Danes set off to even sunnier and warmer climes for their holidays, but there are no strikes or other disruptions expected. 

Those travelling elsewhere in Europe should be aware of a potential traffic controller’s strike at Paris Orly airport, from the second week of July, a baggage handler’s strike on July 5th at Milan Linate, Milan Malpensa, Venice’s Marco Polo, and Bologna’s Guglielmo Marconi airports in Italy, and an aircraft technicians’ strike affecting flights from Norway operated by Norwegian and Widerøe.

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