fassy

I still cannot grasp the motion of the pilots to go into such hard steps for labor action while the airline in on the verge of bankruptcy... Every single flight cancelled cost SK more money and put the company in an even more dire financial position.

I know more than enough companies which did cut salary 10-25% over the last two years while struggling with surviving the COVID measures. An most of the time the employees supported that plan since the other option was either drastic reduction in head count or a default.

CPH-Flyer

The pilot union still mentally lives in the period where SK had a monopoly on the Scandinavian capital triangle, and a same day return Copenhagen Stockholm started at 6,000 DKK. Not today's 6,000 back then's 6,000. Cost was not a worry and everyone was happy. Except maybe those who had to pay for those tickets.

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fassy

Well, they will have a very rude awakening if SK really goes into some kind of bankruptcy, terminates all employees, reorganizes and hires foreign staff on a fraction of the former agreements... and of course with all fringe benefits and seniority perks being sacked. At that point, I don't want to hear a single complaint from the unionized labor force that this is soooo unfair. They had their chance... more than once.

dodgeflyer

I kinda get it actually.

If you're an SAS employee, you work a company which has continuously cut away at your benefits and compensation. A thousand paper cuts seems apt... General fatigue from this must be high. Comparing pay across airlines is incredibly hard but lots say that SAS now are one of the worst payers in the industry.

Now your employer wants to do more of the same; and have at the same time threatened them with they are bankrupting the company (and that's not the first time). Why not play your last hand by going all-in?

Pensions shouldn't be affected by this (could be wrong), nor are you likely to end up any worse off vs. anyone who picks up the leftovers.

You're going to be worse off regardless, why not push forward a "Project Phoenix" yourself?

ckx2

EoB and no news. Think I'm preparing and getting myself a full flex fare on a different airline to reach my destination just in case.

Tomas E

There was a short report on Swedish radio this morning where they talked to one of the mediators who said that the parties had been talking all day yesterday (Sunday) and had at least one online meeting earlier during the midsummer weekend. So while basically "no news is bad news", there has apparently been a lot of talking/negotiating/mediating going on behind the scenes. It would be strange unless at least something "official" came out later today, even if it would be "negotiations continue tomorrow, other than that we have nothing to say".

Barciur

That's great, but it makes me depressed, becuase I do not have a couple thousand dollars to fork out for another flight would SAS generally be good on rebookings? I have a flight from EWR to Stockholm to CPH to Gdansk on June 30 - there is a direct EWR-WAW at 11pm on June 30 and a 3.5 hour wait for WAW-GDN on LOT. Since they are both Star Alliance, is it likely they would just put me on that?

Lovethecabin

This is what I did this morning. We don't have enough room in our schedule to wait for a SAS rebooking.

cpworld

We just did the same thing. We are flying Stockholm to Faro (through CPH) in mid-July. Bought refundable tickets on Eurowings as a backup -- don't know anything about them.

ckx2

All of the sudden my flight is back to scheduled and being operated by SAS connect :S

dodgeflyer

Think your issue will be availability once it happens. I’ve booked an alternative fully flex ticket this Friday.

vanillabean

As much as the SAS bean counter approach of creating Connect and Link to keep costs low in a competitive environment can be understood, you just don’t treat your main staff that way. A less arrogant management might have done better early on by focusing on compromise which in all likelihood could have saved a lot of money compared to how it has turned out. Business models were applied that aren’t very Scandinavian. I am reminded of the boardroom Amex being out of touch with reality and catching up too late.

Nevertheless, I am confident that my upcoming CPH-SFO on Avianca miles will work out just fine since Anko van der Werff worked at Avianca Holdings before coming to SAS a year ago and no doubt can pull some strings!

dark_phoenix

Your comment brought up something I had been thinking about since all of this business was announced. I wonder if Anko was brought in specifically to do this because it's so anti-Scandinavian to do it and you'd probably want an outsider do something this drastic instead of a son or daughter of Scandinavia because Anko will just fly away to his next gig after SAS Forward is all said and done?

I have managed business units large and small in my career here in Scandinavia and what SAS is doing feels like the nuclear option which is causing the unions to consider the nuclear option as well.

CPH-Flyer

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The problem is really that SK pilots and cabin crew should have accepted a gradual change of terms for new hires long ago. But they were always adamant that everyone should be on the same contract. I can partially see why, it gives management an incentive to push out tenured staff to replace them with new and cheaper people. But it was in some ways also keeping their heads in the sand, and ignoring challenges that were already clear and present.

I don't, in principle, see an issue with creating outsourced processes or outsourcing companies. Most companies do it, outsourced call centres, outsourced accounting, outsourced facility services, outsourced warehouses, etc. etc. Many airlines do it, United Express, BA City Flyer, etc. We should not kid ourselves that when TATA in India takes over running a company's SAP systems that the new team members are employed at conditions anywhere close to the original company's condition, nor that most legacy SAP people are kept in their original jobs and conditions.

The challenge is how to handle the transition, and here I think both SK management and the unions have failed the SAS employed utterly. Leading in to the mess that we have now. I have been very critical of BA, that basically fired all cabin crew and asked them to sign a new contract if they wanted to work again, and as done during furlough their notice period would already be up. I realise in pieces now, that on a slightly less broad scale SK has in fact done the same thing, and I don't agree with that either. I don't disagree, necessarily, with the setup of Link and Connect, but I do disagree with the means with which it was achieved.
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GUWonder

And it could be mutually assured destruction.... except both sides probably still count on the government shareholders to bail them out again and think MAD is improbable. Whether it is or is not.