Strike action by some 400 Swedish pilots at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) showed no sign of ending June 13, as the carrier announced that 230 flights and 27,000 passengers would be affected.
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Some 40 flights flown by pilots based at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport were cancelled after the strike broke out at 6pm local time, SAS said. Our top priority now is to take care of those passengers affected by the strike and help them in the best possible way, says Karin Nyman, Vice President Communications, SAS.
SAS has accepted a number of the pilot association’s demands, such as a new salary scale, the salary review within the context of the framework of the central salary settlement in Sweden and changing leisure and part-time rules. A quarter of Air France’s pilots started a four-day strike on Saturday, forcing the cancellation of 20% of flights at the weekend.
The striking Swedish pilots began their work stoppage on Friday at 6pm after the pilots’ union rejected a proposed 2.2 percent wage increase, insisting on a hike of 3.5 percent. “Both domestic and European flights from Sweden are cancelled”, the Scandinavian airline said in a statement. SAS’ long-distance routes, however, are expected to run as scheduled.
According to Henriksson, the average salary among 1,300 SAS pilots is 78,000 kronor ($9,424) a month, while the highest earners make 96,000 kronor ($11,599) a month.
The airline is partly owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
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The Swedish Pilot Union rebutes accusations of holding the passengers hostage for the negotiations, and uphold the fairness in their demands because of the wage cuts pilots have agreed to in conjunction with SAS’s economic problems in previous years.
