SAS airline cancels 1,200 additional flights, pilot strike stifles

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The Scandinavian airline SAS has canceled more than 1,200 flights scheduled Monday and Tuesday, a strike pilots who disrupted the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers entered Sunday in the third day.

SAS pilots went on strike on Friday as pay talks broke down, blocking about 70 percent of the airline's flights and affecting about 280,000 passengers, including the last cancellations.

"We deeply regret that our customers are affected by the ongoing pilots' strike when SAS cancels its flights on Monday and Tuesday," the airline said in a statement.

"The strike will affect 61,000 additional passengers on Monday when 667 flights will be canceled across Scandinavia. Tuesday, 49,000 passengers and 546 departures will be affected. "

The stalemate in the conflict showed no sign of a break on Sunday as the SAS and Swedish pilots 'unions and the Norwegian employers' association NHO said no further contact between the parties had been made.

The carrier created after the Second World War, which still belongs to the Swedish and Danish governments, said it was ready to resume negotiations, but warned that accepting the pilots' demands would seriously harm the company.

Swedish employers in the airline industry claimed that the pilots were looking for a 13% increase in salary, which was already high, with an average salary of SEK 93,000 ($ 9,777) per month, what he qualifies as extreme.

The SAS Pilot Group, a trade union representing 95% of the company's pilots in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, said the dispute was about more than wages, highlighting the demand for more predictable working hours.

Having flirted with bankruptcy in 2012, SAS has achieved a net profit in each of the past four years. But rising fuel costs, currency volatility and the overcapacity of European airlines put pressure on carriers, including SAS.

Sydbank analysts said the strike would cost the airline 60 to 80 million Swedish kroner a day, a rate that would wipe out the expected net profit this year in just two weeks.

The strike at SAS does not affect the flights operated by its partners, which represent about 30% of departures.