– I do not think there will be a long strike. I think the pilots and the SAS leadership want a halt to this, says Frode Steen. He is a professor of economics at the Norwegian School of Management and follows aviation closely. The pilot strike in SAS takes place in the middle of one of the busiest holiday weeks of the year. This leads to angry customers who have their trips canceled or delayed. – This strike is so stupid, to put it bluntly. It is so wrong for the company and the pilots. They lose so much in reputation and in the frustration around them. They can not really afford to continue in this way, says the professor. This is the conflict SAS and their pilots are not in disagreement about pay. The core of the conflict is the creation of two staffing companies. During the pandemic, around 560 pilots lost their jobs. At the same time, SAS established two subsidiaries. They were named SAS Link and SAS Connect. These will take over aircraft and be filled with new pilots. The SAS pilots who were laid off during the pandemic will have their job back. They say SAS is trying to circumvent its obligations to bring the dismissed pilots back. SAS rejects this. They believe the company takes into account all agreements entered into. According to the pilot association, the pilots have agreed to savings measures that amount to 25 percent savings. In return, they will have an assurance that it is their members who get the new jobs that will be filled in SAS Link and SAS Connect. – Unusually bad signal Also aircraft analyst Jacob Pedersen in Danish Sydbank hopes the strike will be short-lived, but says it is extremely difficult to answer how long it can last. ANALYST: Jacob Pedersen is an aviation analyst at Danish Sydbank. Photo: Sydbank – In principle, it can only be a few days, or there can be a really long strike for several weeks. If there is a strike of the long kind, it is an “unusually bad signal for the situation the company is in”, according to Pedersen. Frode Steen points out that SAS is struggling financially and is now losing money every day. – If the strike lasts a long time now, SAS will no longer exist. So the strike can not last very long, unless the pilots want to do as they have said, and strike into the abyss. It’s a shame for the 7,000 others who work in the company. – Should shave the whole organization Furthermore, Steen points out that the war of words between the parties is very tough, but that it is not unusual in conflicts in the aviation industry. PROFESSOR: Frode Steen follows aviation closely. Photo: Hallvard Lyssand – The big challenge for SAS is that it is difficult to get schemes with employees. They have shown themselves willing to confront or go on strike, and then the company has not achieved everything they have wanted. The professor believes that SAS seems to be too focused on the working conditions of pilots and cabin crew. – They seem to forget that there are other cost items they can also save on. SAS has been heavily managed, there is no shortage of tenants, says Steen. – Should SAS shave the top a bit? – I think they should shave their entire organization, says the NHH professor. Prolonged strike loses SAS account news has asked SAS how long they tolerate being on strike. PRESS MANAGER: Tonje Sund is press manager at SAS. – We do not want to speculate on how much the company tolerates, but this strike is very demanding. It is up to the pilots to end the conflict, and our door is open, writes Tonje Sund, press manager at SAS, in an e-mail. The pilots’ union has said that they are willing to strike until SAS goes bankrupt, but on Wednesday morning the company applied for bankruptcy protection in the USA. This means that SAS is free from being filed for bankruptcy for the next nine to twelve months, according to aviation analyst Pedersen. – But it is clear, if the strike lasts for two months ahead, SAS does not have much money in the coffers, he states. – The SAS lease has its back to the wall. They must deliver a saving to get money from the Danish state. They have to deliver on their big savings plan, and do not have that much room for maneuver to go, says Pedersen. SAS TOP: Carsten Dilling is chairman of the board of SAS. Photo: Ksenia Novikova / news SAS’s chairman, Carsten Dilling, points out to news that SAS had around NOK 8 billion in cash when the second quarter report came on 30 June. – It is a relatively good capital contingency, but a strike costs a colossal amount of money. We have a large cash balance now because we have sold many tickets, but if we instead pay back to the customers because we do not fly, the cash register will be emptied fairly quickly, says Dilling. Pilots: Can strike for a long time The pilots do not want to reveal how large strike boxes they have, but to news they state that they can last for a long time. – We can strike for as long as necessary. If there is a strike one will ever be in, then it is this, says Roger Klokset in the Norwegian SAS pilots’ association, which is affiliated with LO. – We have nothing more to give, we are at a minimum for what we need, which is security for our jobs, Klokset continued. When asked if the strike will last a week, Parat / YS-affiliated SAS Norge Flygerforening (SNF) answers the following: – Much more than that. We are ready to be in conflict, if SAS wants it, says SNF leader Jan Levi Skogvang. He will not say any number of days or weeks. SAS chief says pilots lie Meanwhile, swear words from both parties hail. When the pilots say that SAS is constantly changing the goal for how much they have to save, the CEO of SAS, Anko van der Werff, answers to news that the pilots are lying, and that the company has had the same goal since February. Skogvang calls for the SAS tops themselves to contribute on the pay side, when they demand that employees reduce their salaries. – We have a lease in SAS, but no tenants. They do not go in front and show the way. They have not indicated anything about what their contribution is. They demand 30 percent on our terms without saying anything about what they themselves will contribute, he says. Four pilot associations together (left): Jan Levi Skogvang, Aleksander Wasland, Henrik Thyregod and Roger Klokset. Photo: ksenia novikova
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NHH professor does not think SAS strike will be long – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
