SAS: strike over - problems remain
After more than two weeks of pilot strikes, the crisis-ridden airline SAS and four Scandinavian unions agreed on Tuesday to a new wage settlement. That same day the airline, hitherto majority owned by Denmark and Sweden with shares of 21.8 each, restarted operations. But its problems, as commentators note, are still a long way off being resolved.
You can't bring a dinosaur back from extinction
Jyllands-Posten is furious:
“SAS operates in a protected zone - at the taxpayers' expense. It is high time the Danish withdrew, just as happened in Sweden [which wants to reduce its share]. ... But the Danish state doesn't only want to support SAS, it also wants to up its investment - increasing its share from 21.8 to 30 percent. ... In its current form SAS is a dinosaur, which needs artificial respiration to survive. ... All Scandinavian countries should have sold their SAS shares long ago and forced the company to function in the real world.”
Flying has become dangerous
Aftonbladet worries about flight safety:
“In May this year a Norwegian aeroplane that took off at [Stockholm] Arlanda was only seconds away from crashing in Paris. Aviation expert Jan Ohlsson is concerned about flight safety and stresses that since the pandemic 'there has been a shortage of pilots and flight crew who are bouncing between companies with different routes.' The airline industry needs to be better regulated - with a industry-wide agreement for all companies who fly to Scandinavia and with stricter safety regulations on the part of the authorities.”