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SAS pilots stop flying stranded Scandinavian travellers home

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots will stop flying thousands of charter passengers home because they believe the airline has breached its side of the agreement as there are alternative travel options available.

SAS aeroplane
File photo of an SAS aeroplane. Photo: Javad Parsa/NTB/TT

The pilots say SAS has not complied with the agreement they entered into.

According to the agreement, the SAS Pilot Group (SPG), which represents the pilots, had said on Thursday they would break their strike so that SAS could operate a limited number of flights to destinations where there were few or no options for return.

Since then, thousands of charter passengers have been flown home from their destinations.

But this latest news puts an end to that.

“During the weekend, to our great surprise, we have seen that many flights are being deployed to popular and well-trafficked holiday destinations, such as Rhodes, Crete, Larnaca and Split, from where there are already alternative travel options,” SPG said in a press release.

“We find it regrettable that SAS is once again unable to comply with the agreement as intended, and SPG therefore finds itself forced to end the charter departures after the last flight today, 10 July 2022,” SPG stated in the press release.

“Fully booked”
But according to SAS, the alternatives are extremely limited and it’s not as easy to fly the charter passengers home as the pilots’ association says.

“Most things are fully booked. Bringing home an entire aircraft with 180 passengers and believing you will be able to book it on other planes, even if it is Crete or Split, is obviously not going to not work,” SAS communications director Karin Nyman said, Swedish newswire TT reported.

She pointed out that it is usually possible to make exceptions for charter passengers during a strike and believed it “unnecessary” to involve them in the conflict

“It shows a heartlessness. Charter travellers are hit much harder than other travellers as they are more difficult to rebook. Now we have to go back and see what we can do, but unfortunately, it is the customers who are the losers in this,” she added.

But SPG claims that SAS has, for commercial reasons, not tried to reallocate flight capacity to get the charter guests home, which was the aim of the agreement, Danish newswire Ritzau reported.

“Sad and negative”
Charter travel companies Ving and Apollo are both critical of SPG’s announcement.

“It was a sad and negative message for us. Now we are resuming the work of finding our own flight solutions instead,” said Claes Pellvik, communications manager at Ving, TT said.

“You get upset. I think everyone wants the parties to find a solution, but it feels like they are just finding more conflicts,” agreed Sandra Miller Kinge, communications manager at Apollo.

Since last Friday, Ving has received most of the passengers who were due to fly to Sweden, except for about 150 who were planned to fly on Monday and whose return travel is now uncertain.

And Apollo has about 300 passengers who would have flown to Sweden today, but who now have to wait to be told when they can return home.

No basis for real negotiations yet
Earlier today, the Norwegian SAS pilots’ trade union had a so-called status meeting with mediators in Stockholm, head of the union Roger Klokset confirmed to newspaper Verdens Gang (VG).

The meeting was at the initiative of Swedish mediators, and both parties were present, Klokset said.

It was said to have been about “clarifications of position”, but not negotiations.

“We have still not heard anything from SAS management that provides a basis for real negotiations,” he said.

Tonje Sund, communications manager for SAS Norway, said the airline was in contact with the mediators, TT reported.

On Friday, one of the mediators in the pilot conflict, Mats Wilhelm Ruland, said he would probably call the parties soon.

“Of course SAS wants to negotiate,” Sund said.

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 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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STRIKES

Fresh strike threat could ground flights from Norway

Aircraft technicians in Norway working for SAS, Norwegian, and Widerøe could strike, causing disruption for air traffic at the start of the summer holidays if mediation talks fail.

Fresh strike threat could ground flights from Norway

Beginning later this week, the union representing aircraft technicians at SAS, Norwegian, and Widerøe (Norsk Flyteknikerorganisasjonand) and the branch of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) responsible for the aviation industry, will have mediation talks on a collective bargaining agreement.

If an agreement isn’t agreed, 30 aircraft technicians will be taken out on strike – with more workers being taken out until an agreement is reached.

“The will to strike is great. If it is not resolved quickly, it is natural to register more,” Jan Skogseth, head of the union, told travel news publication Flysmart 24.

The strike could begin at midnight on Friday, disrupting air travel at the start of the school holidays in Norway. The strike could take aircraft out of rotation as there will be less staff to carry out essential maintenance on planes.

“The number of workers being taken out may sound low, but considering that there is already a shortage of aircraft technicians, a tight summer program at the same time as the holidays, it can quickly have a big impact when we have around 480 aircraft technicians in Norway in total,” Skogseth said.

However, he said that the strike would not affect flights that are critical to life and health. In 2022, the Norwegian government ordered an aircraft technician strike to an end after a strike escalation threatened to ground air ambulances.

When the Norwegian government orders a strike to end, a state body decides the outcome of the collective bargaining agreement and terms, such as wages.

Norway has seen several potential strikes averted in recent weeks. Both a pilot’s strike that would have affected Norwegian and an Avinor staff strike was resolved during mediation or mediation overtime.

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