SK shows themselves to be unreliable during vacation season, ruining peoples vacation. And an arrogant CEO loses his temper in front of TV-cameras and uses stong invectives against the pilots - showing that he hasn't the balance and calmness expected from him. This is combined with the extremely high (for Scandinavia) renumeration he looted from Avianca, after cutting staff and salaries, and the high salary he gets from SAS. You might appreciate his American-style no-nonsense attitude to workplace relations, but it doesn't go down well with the Scandinavian public.
I don't follow Swedish or Danish media that closely, but polls have shown that the sympathy from the Norwegian public goes to the pilots. The pilots' narrative is that they have accepted huge cuts in salary (5% decrease, every one else gets 4,7% increase, flight mechanics demanded 18% increase), worse working conditions (more weekends, more work in summer, less in winter), accepting no right to strike for 6 (or 8) years. Their one demand was the right to remain employed in mainline SAS and keep seniority. They also claim that SAS kept on moving the goal posts whenever they gave concessions in the negotiations. The interesting fact is that this narrative for the main part has not really been contradicted by SAS. As the average Norwegian is a salaried employee himself, and being a member of a union, this resonates well with him.
Newspaper commentators (still important here) clearly side with the pilots. Anko van der Werff is now seen as a huge liability for SAS.
What the media portrays as public opinion and what is really public opinion in Scandinavia I have found to generally be opposites. Especially the indoctrination from state TV or left aligned papers is hilarious. My Swedish circle has nothing good to say about either the pilots or the unions in general that are more and more seen as a toxic nightmare. Perhaps Norwegians are more conservative or in general do not experience the negative effects of unions and poor country management as much as Swedes do but that eventually that is a matter of time.
I see a CEO trying to save a sinking ship that will only keep sinking if he gives into the unions.
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
PR disaster or not for one or the other, it’s flying SAS that comes across as being unreliable; and it’s SAS that is seen as being a less than ideal place to park the travel money for those people who don’t want to see their travel plans scuppered because of SAS flight cancellations.
SAS has been rebooking or refunding passengers, I doubt many people completely had their travel or vacation ruined. Perhaps they got there a day late. The bookings I've seen rebooked all got to their destination the same day, most just a few hours late, some on a better airline and product, one even 2 hours earlier.
Ironically, it’s this strike that is making some more people consider the likes of Wizzair, Ryanair etc. That’s neither good for SAS employees, nor good for most of its non-governmental shareholders, nor good for those who want back “the businessman's airline” level of service. Who is it good for?
I agree the strike is good for nobody. People who consider the likes of Wizzair and Ryanair will eventually run into the error of their ways.