SAS has filed for chapter amid pilot strikes.
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Scandinavian Airways, higher referred to as SAS — the flag service of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US on Tuesday, sooner or later after a thousand of its pilots referred to as for a strike.
The airline is blaming the pilots union for service disruptions. “SAS will proceed to serve its prospects as regular, though the strike by SAS Scandinavia pilots’ unions will impression the flight schedule,” the airline mentioned in a press release.
The airline is canceling greater than half of its scheduled flights, including to widespread journey disruptions already occurring throughout Europe. As of 8 a.m. Jap Time on Tuesday, SAS had canceled 236 flights, a whopping 78% of its each day quantity, according to FlightAware. In Norway, these embody 21% of flights departing Oslo Gardermoen Airport; 16% leaving Tromso Airport, and 15% of flights departing Trondheim and Kristiansand airports.
Stockholm-based SAS mentioned submitting for Chapter 11 will permit it to reorganize its funds underneath a program it’s calling “SAS Ahead,” noting that the enterprise is in “effectively superior discussions with a variety of potential lenders” to acquire extra debtor-in-possession financing for as much as $700 million to assist its operations all through this court-supervised course of. Debtor-in possession financing is a specialised sort of bridge financing for companies which can be restructuring by way of a Chapter 11 course of.
“The continuing strike has made an already difficult state of affairs even harder,” mentioned Anko van der Werff, CEO of SAS, who urged the pilots’ unions to finish their strike and “interact constructively as a part of this course of.”
Within the bigger image, unrest amongst pilot and airline employees unions has change into a worldwide difficulty, including extra chaos to an already fraught journey atmosphere.
British Airways employees are getting ready for a strike within the coming weeks over calls for {that a} 10% pay minimize carried out throughout the pandemic will get reversed. And in Spain, workers on the funds service Ryanair have introduced they are going to be placing for 12 days in July in an effort to safe higher work situations.
On June 30, Delta Air Traces pilots picketed at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (LAX) throughout a protest over the union contract. (Picture by Mario Tama)
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In the US, the pilot scarcity has spurred a flurry of latest demonstrations and renegotiated contracts between carriers and pilot unions.
In late June, sad pilots at Southwest Airways picketed the corporate’s headquarters in Dallas and close to the doorway to Love Subject Airport to demand a greater union contract.
Additionally final month, more than 1,200 Delta Air Traces pilots and workers held demonstrations and picketed at main U.S. airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York Metropolis, Salt Lake Metropolis and Seattle, calling for greater pay, amongst different calls for.
Final week, American Airways supplied its pilots pay raises of almost 17% in a brand new contract. The prior week, the United Airways reached a tentative settlement with its pilots together with pay will increase of 14.5% inside 18 months.
