The SAS pilots continue to strike: The airline has canceled 900 flights for the weekend. Affected are almost 100,000 passengers. There are effects mainly in the Scandinavian countries.
The Scandinavian airline SAS has canceled about 900 flights at the weekend because of a pilot strike. According to the airline, around 98,000 passengers were affected by the cancellations on Saturday and Sunday. Also, individual connections to Germany fell out accordingly.
Already on Friday, according to the SAS 72,000 passengers were affected by the strike, 673 flights were canceled. Also connections to Germany were canceled: SAS flights were canceled from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, from Stockholm to Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Dusseldorf as well as from Oslo to Munich and Berlin.
SAS partners, who make about 30 percent of all air travel, were not affected by the strike, it said.
Most passengers were stranded Friday at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, where more than 100 flights had to be canceled. At Oslo Airport Gardermoen and at Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen there were meter-long queues in front of the information desks. However, many travelers had been able to reschedule or switch to other airlines on time, since it was foreseeable that the collective bargaining parties would not reach an agreement.
Pilots demand 13 percent more pay
During the night of Friday, the Swedish pilots‘ union broke off collective bargaining, followed by Norwegian and Danish in the early morning. The pilots demand 13 percent more wages and more predictability in everyday working life. SAS was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2012, cutting salaries for many employees.
„It is very regrettable that the pilot strike affects our customers,“ explained SAS. „We are ready for talks, but if the demands were met, it would have very negative consequences for the company.“
