– I want to fly. The dream is to return to a cockpit and fly passengers to various destinations. That is the victory of the 26-year-old newly trained pilot, Steffen Kvamme. He got a job at SAS Scandinavia right after his studies in January 2020. Six months later, he and 559 other pilots were fired with a promise to get the job back after the pandemic. – This means that before SAS hires someone else, they must hire us who were in the company before, says Kvamme. Now the air traffic is back, but Kvamme is instead a theory instructor at Pilot Flight Academy in Sandefjord. So far, around 100 of the dismissed pilots have been given back their jobs at SAS. – We strike for Steffen Dei’s two subsidiaries of SAS – SAS Link and SAS Connect – were started up after the pilots lost their jobs. – We believe that SAS goes behind our backs when they establish the company Link and Connect, with new agreements and other terms after our agreement was entered into, says leader of the Pilots’ Association Aleksander Wasland to news. In the new companies, the right to get the job back does not apply. – But they are “warmly welcome” to apply for the new companies, he says. Tenant in the Norwegian Pilots’ Association, Aleksander Wasland meiner SAS goes behind their backs. Photo: Hans Ivar Moss Kolseth / news Several pilots have applied for the advertised positions in subsidiaries, but were rejected. – One of these is Steffen Kvamme, and it is he and the other pilots we strike for. Negotiations between the pilots and the SAS leadership in Stockholm are now in full swing, but the parties have not yet reached an agreement. – We believe that this is a violation of the rule in working life, a violation of the agreed right to get the job back, and a threat to the Scandinavian model, Wasland concludes. – Is frustrating Kvamme was rejected when he applied for the subsidiary SAS Link because he has the wrong flight certificate. In Link, they use the aircraft type Embraer, while Kvamme has a certificate on Boeing 737. It would have cost Kvamme around 300,000 to receive training on the other aircraft type. Steffen Kvamme was told to take care of the uniform and ID card after he was fired from SAS. Photo: Private – It’s frustrating. I’m relatively young, and then there are fewer opportunities, so when you get rejected, it’s frustrating, he says and adds: – At least when you are told to apply for your own job, also get answers that you are not qualified. – More applicants than there are vacancies – SAS has started recruiting after a pandemic that cost 5,000 SAS colleagues their jobs, says press manager at SAS Tonje Sund and adds: – These are skilled employees from many areas of the company – where the pilots are the only group with a five-year right to get back the job in the company they came from, For example, there are 114 pilots who are back in SAS Scandinavia, according to Sund. – After a quarter as there will be more vacancies here, one will be able to take advantage of this right. Some pilots have also chosen to apply for SAS Connect or SAS Link, and several from SAS Scandinavia have gotten jobs there, according to Sund. – So far, we have more applicants than there are vacancies in these two companies and we have, for example, not been able to offer all jobs. SAS’s press manager Tonje Sund says that the company has started hiring again after the pandemic. Photo: Vilde Helljesen – Right now SAS is fighting to survive, but the goal is of course to create a strong SAS for the future, so that even more people can return to the company – both on the pilot side and in other areas of the company, she says. On the change of aircraft type, the press officer explains that new courses are required to go from one aircraft type to another, and that SAS, as the employer, bears the cost of the course. – Furthermore, we want to emphasize that SAS employees in Scandinavia, in all three companies, will continue to have Scandinavian agreements with good Scandinavian terms – as it is today, she concludes.
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Steffen (26) is one of the reasons why the SAS pilots are on strike
