DPA: Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) announce Saturday that it has to cancel 587 hundreds of flights scheduled for Sunday for the persistence of the pilot strike for the second day.
"We deeplyregret that our customers are affected by the ongoing pilot strike that has ledto delays and canceled flights," SAS said in its official statement.
It'sestimated that another 64,000 passengers will be affected owing to thecancellation of other 587 flights across Scandinavia, Norway, and Sweden. Thestrike of SAS pilots began yesterday, Fridayimmediatelyafter the breakdown of mediation talks with the SAS pilot group on wages reachingno agreement.
Mediators in the three Scandinavian capitals saidthere are significant disputes between the parties to the talks as SAS pilotsare demanding compensations for lower salaries and other concessions they madein 2012, when the company was passing an economic crisis.
It's mentioned that talks between the SAS pilot group and the company on wage increase andworking hours have been going on since March, and the group has warned of astrike earlier in April. SAS pilots complain about the wages that are less thanthe market value, the deteriorating working conditions, the unpredictableplanning work hours, and the insecure jobs.
"Almost one in four SAS flights is flown bysubcontractors and we want to know what our future looks like," WilhelmTersmeden, chairman of the Swedish pilots' association, told a news agency.
The open-ended strike has so far led to the disruption of around 70% of the airline's flights, affecting 170,000 passengers over the weekend alone. While the other 30% of the airline's flights didn't suffer due to being operated by SAS partner airlines. It's reported that domestic flights in the Nordic region have been disrupted, as well as flights to some European countries and other long destinations.
