The Norwegian Pilots' Union has requested sympathetic measures from the international pilot organization IFALPA in the wake of SAS's handling of laid-off pilots. On Thursday, the airline also published job advertisements for the new company SAS Link with requirements that, according to reports, few, if any, of the laid-off pilots have.
The member organization IFALPA, which represents more than 100,000 pilots in nearly 100 countries, writes in a press release that it has been notified of SAS SAS +0.19% handling the 560 SAS pilots laid off during the pandemic. SAS will hire new personnel through two separate companies with their own aircraft, without any special preference for previously laid off pilots.
The Norwegian Pilots' Union is now requesting sympathetic measures from IFALPA in the form of, among other things, a blockade of new hires and a blockade of training facilities.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the staffing company CAE Parc Aviation has posted a new job advertisement for SAS Link, one of the two companies that SAS aims to operate air traffic in. The focus for SAS Link is to be able to cover small regions in Scandinavia with smaller aircraft that will be linked to the company's large network.
According to the job advertisement, which is commissioned by SAS Link Crew Services, applications are being accepted from experienced Embraer captains, with preference given to those with licenses for the ERJ 190/195 aircraft types. Of the 560 laid-off SAS pilots, few, if any, have that license, according to information provided to Di.
SAS's handling of the company's laid-off pilots has been much debated in Norway in recent weeks, with the Labour Party sharply criticizing the company. The issue has led a more anonymous existence in Sweden, but on Wednesday several opposition politicians joined from M, C and V out and demanded that Minister of Industry Ibrahim Baylan take the knife out of his mouth.
On Wednesday, hundreds of pilots also gathered at SAS headquarters to show their dissatisfaction with how the company has treated them after the pandemic.
”"SAS is breaking all obligations to us pilots. They have said that we should have the right to re-employment, and now they are using legal tricks to round off all sorts of agreements and outsource production instead," Norwegian pilot Anders Eikeland told DN.
SAS itself has rejected the criticism and said that they follow all existing rules and laws and that the measures being taken are part of the strategy that was put in place even before corona punctured demand.
Source: DI.SE
