CPH-Flyer

Now the Danish union for SAS Connect/Link is starting to fight with the union for SAS Danmark

https://finans.dk/erhverv/ECE1421889...g-dansk-metal/

Jainzar

The interesting part is, that according to FPA Connect pays more if you are a young pilot, and SAS Scandinavia pays better if you have a senior role.

GUWonder

Recall the FT reference to the SAS CEO/Anko VDW looking like he’s straight out of central casting for Game of Thrones?

One Machiavellian game is to drive the enemy to splinter and then let the divided enemy fight against each other as enemies who are at each other’s throat. Whether by design or not, this is Machiavelli of The Prince and not of The Discourses.

FlyingMoose

Love it! Hollywood couldn't have come up with a better story. Anko appears smarter than he looks or is evident from his resume.

I guess the Connect pilots also see a shortcut to seniority if Legacy is to go away.

GUWonder

Doesn’t appear that way to me, unless the sign of being smart is to be unfaithful about the fiduciary duty toward shareholders. It doesn’t take much intelligence to wipe out most of the then-remaining equity value held by the parties toward whom he supposedly had a principal fiduciary duty when he was hired by SAS.

FlyingMoose

I guess if wiping out the then-remaining equity value was an implicit path for the business regardless, the full offense option and defusing the media are probably intelligible steps. Its short term vs long term, if SAS has a long term - but without trying it definitely has not. Tackling the business's biggest issue and financial burden heads on seems like a worthwhile duty for a CEO?

tr3k

So, what should have SAS done? Given the requested raises to their pilots, and continued business as usual? Given that this would result in losses, wouldn't company then shortly stop operating as a going concern, at which point everyone would be out of their job? Or is there a way for SK to somehow increase revenues substantially that the mgmt. isn't considering?

Fredrik74

Yes, but they're not there yet. Given that they are domiciled in Sweden and that there are specific steps that must be taken if they believe their share capital is disappearing and they haven't published any information about those steps(eg. no mention of 'kontrollbalansräkning') then either the situation isn't as dire as it's made out to be or management is not doing what they should do.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that, in the past, SAS unions haven't been very cooperative or that they have been living in fantasy land but it's equally obvious that management didn't negotiate in good faith this time.

GUWonder

On Friday, SAS was not anywhere close to having so little access to capital that it would need to close up shop post-haste.

IIHC, SAS had continuing access to something around or over $700 million to keep its operations going very easily for all of this year and then some.

CPH-Flyer

Considering that the union in Denmark already had the campaign and the media space ready, I am not sure they were negotiating in full good faith either.... Let the media spin wars begin. At least IPG and the likes will be happy for what is normally likely to be a quiet time in media space.

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/business/2022...ke-langt-siger

tr3k

So what you are saying is - they needed to burn more cash. At that point, though, what are the chances of successful restructure? Sounds like your plan would lead them into liquidation. If current trajectory of business is into losses and steps need to be taken to stem them, one would think it is incumbent on the mgmt to do so as early as possible. I am sure the (soon to be ex) employees would have appreciated giveways from the credit line, but perhaps creditors would not.

cpworld

You need to see it to believe it:

GUWonder

The pilots on strike have offered to SAS to fly charter (primarily Scandinavian) tourists who have been stranded.

Will SAS management help those stranded tourists by accepting the pilots’ offer, or will SAS management stomp its feet and say — in the way of KLM — “No, not possible!”?

200 Danish mechanics for SAS are on strike too.

CPH-Flyer

There seems to be a dispute over the conditions, some media reports that the pilots are asking SK to lift the lock-outs, some media reports that there are no conditions tied to the offer. SK claims that they initially offered to keep the charter operations out of the strike, but the pilots declined. There seems to be some agreement that the pilots do demand that the planes have to fly empty to the pick up points, and can't bring new charter guests to those destinations.

According to TV2 in Denmark, it is about 12,000 travelers that will be heading back to Scandinavia this weekend, that's a decent amount of flights that are needed.

GUWonder

From what I was hearing — and it’s from some who are too bougie to like the unions — SK didn’t offer to keep the charter operations out of the strike; rather SK asked the pilots to leave the charter pilots out of the strike when the union had already had them included in the strike. And the pilots are refusing to leave the charter pilots out of the strike as then there would be a replay of stranded charter tourists as they have made it clear that the charter pilots are to be included in the strike as they already are. In other words, the pilots seem to want to continue to do SAS management no favors by excluding the charter pilots from the strike but they are up for a one-off evacuation of stranded passengers by those striking pilots.

The more I read about this, the more obvious it becomes that mentirosos is a word that should but doesn’t bother Team Anko.

With Danish mechanics joining the strike, it will just be a few days before the SAS planes will have to sit on the ground because of that and not just because of striking pilots.