SAS eyes new phase of labour relations after costly strike

SAS has called on unions and management to find new ways of dealing with conflict in the future after a costly pilot strike. The group estimates the cost to this year’s earnings of a week-long walkout by pilots at SEK650m (US$68m). Around 370,000 passengers were affected by the grounding of 4,000 flights. “I hope that when the dust settles and everybody in SAS can see the enormous impact it has on our earnings and our reputation with customers, that we realise this is not the way forward,” CE Rickard Gustafson said. The group earlier said the strike was one of the reasons that would make it challenging to achieve a profit this year. “Most of our employees are seeking some sort of job security and the only job security that is worth anything on paper is our ability to be competitive and embarking on strikes would do the opposite.” <br/>