Facts: That is why the SAS pilots are on strike
The pilots at SAS had previously announced a strike from 29 June because the parties had not been able to agree on a new collective agreement.
According to the trade union Swedish Pilot Association, the strike is about SAS not re-employing the 560 pilots notified during the pandemic and that the airline instead uses pilots from the subsidiaries SAS Link and SAS Connect, which act as staffing companies.
The pilot union then believes that SAS has violated the right to re-employment contained in the collective agreement as the airline has hired replacements instead of previous employees.
Negotiations between the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish pilot associations and SAS’s management have been ongoing since November last year, but the parties have not been able to reach an agreement. The pilots’ old collective agreement expired at the end of March.
On June 9, the pilot unions submitted their strike notice to the Mediation Institute. The mediation has been going on since 13 June.
After several days of intensive negotiations, the news came on Monday that the pilots would go on strike with immediate effect.
Jan Ohlsson, journalist and aviation analyst, is surprised by the parties’ inability to reach a solution.
– I thought they could agree on something. It was now during the summer that the company would earn quick cash to postpone its other financial difficulties for another time. Instead, the bar is moved in the other direction, he says.
– SAS is facing enormous acute and long-term difficulties. The precipice has come much closer now.
Does it scare investors?
SAS says it needs at least SEK 9.5 billion in capital injections. According to CEO Anko van der Werff, the strike makes it difficult for the company to find investors, a view shared by Jan Ohlsson.
– The Danish state will be involved and it may be two billion. But there are 7.5 billion left, and which private investor is interested now that SAS has managed to lose the entire summer season’s earnings?
TT: How do you see the possibilities for the parties to reach an agreement?
– Apparently, the pilots have demanded more than SAS has ever been able to provide, which indicates that they demanded a very expensive solution. As an analyst, I must say that management has a point, because all other companies do exactly what SAS wants to do in one way or another. If you sit down again, the pilots must be aware that you are playing with the fire and that the company risks going bankrupt before the end of the year.
Damaged trust
Nordnet’s savings economist Frida Bratt states that the strike also damages customers’ confidence in the airline.
“Tens of thousands of passengers are affected per day. Should you as a traveler ever dare to book something with SAS, if SAS has managed to survive?”, She writes in an email to TT.