Scandinavian Airlines files for bankruptcy in US as 1,000 pilots walk-out

A day after 1,000 pilots walked out of their jobs, Scandinavian Airlines filed for bankruptcy in the US on Tuesday, warning that the airline’s existence was in risk. The Stockholm-based SAS airline business said that it had “voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 in the United States, a legal procedure for financial reorganisation done under U.S. federal court supervision.”Filing for Chapter 11 in New York puts civil litigation on hold while the business reorganizes its finances.
According to SAS, the statement won’t have an impact on its business operations or flight schedule.

The information about the Chapter 11 filing received a tremendous response from the pilots. As the chairman of the union representing SAS pilots, Roger Klokset, stated, “Without ever having the aim of entering into an agreement with the SAS pilots, the group had prolonged negotiations and mediation from November last year until the day of the application.”

The pilots in Denmark, Sweden and Norway walked out on Monday, citing inadequate pay and working conditions and expressing dissatisfaction with the decision by the carrier to hire new pilots to fill vacancies at its subsidiary airlines, SAS Link and SAS Connect, rather than rehire former pilots who were laid off due to the pandemic.

The strike, according to Van der Werff, is devastating for SAS and affects the company’s future as well as the jobs of thousands of colleagues.And the strike is expected to cause the cancellation of approximately half of all scheduled SAS flights, affecting approximately 30,000 passengers per day. https://jetlinemarvel.net/wideroe-rolls-royce-tecnam-partner-electric-flights-norway/SAS Link, SAS Connect, and SAS’ external partners’ flights are unaffected.

The governments of Sweden and Denmark jointly own the airline. Norway sold its interest in the airline in 2018, but it still has debt, which it has indicated it could be willing to convert to equity.
Chief analyst Jacob Pedersen of Denmark’s Sydbank said, Right now, it is challenging to estimate the relevance of the Chapter 11 request for duration of the pilot strike.”It’s questionable whether it will bring (the pilots) back to the negotiation table,” the statement added.

According to Pedersen’s analysis, the SAS decision was “not shocking” but came “faster than we expected.” Although SAS is currently protected by bankruptcy law.