Cost increases of up to 45 percent.

This is how much the pilot union's demands in the negotiations over new salaries for SAS pilots cost, claims the employer party, Transportföretagen.

But it is a figure that Wilhelm Tersmeden, chairman of the Swedish Pilots' Association's SAS section, does not recognize at all.

The negotiations have just begun and the parties seem to have hit a dead end.

”"The pilots' wage demands would mean a cost increase of approximately 20 percent and the combined demands would amount to cost increases of almost 45 percent. It is unthinkable," writes Torbjörn Granevärn, head of negotiations at the Swedish Transport Companies, in a comment to TT.

It doesn't sound wise, says Wilhelm Tersmeden, who doesn't understand where the employers got those figures from. However, he doesn't want to comment further on the content of the requirements.

”We had agreed not to comment,” says Tersmeden.

Source: TT