SAS transfers 27 routes to 2 new controversial subsidiaries

SAS is now launching a controversial business plan with new subsidiaries in earnest. 27 unprofitable routes are transferred from the old company to the new ones, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports.

The decision increases tensions between the management and the pilots ahead of this spring’s contract negotiations. The SAS Group’s decision to establish the new subsidiaries, SAS Link and SAS Connect, has created major internal protests.

Despite the strong internal resistance, SAS Scandinavia decided that a total of 27 routes will be moved to the new companies: 13 from Copenhagen Kastrup and 14 from Stockholm Arlanda, which have not been profitable in 2021.

SAS has long argued that new subsidiaries are a necessity for the Group to be able to survive when competition from low-cost companies becomes fiercer, at the same time as business travellers become fewer.

The unions see it rather as a way for management to round off agreements and get rid of existing staff in favour of cheaper labour with worse conditions in the new companies.

As the plans became more concrete last year, tensions between unions and employers have increased. Now that the newly appointed CEO Anko Van der Werff speeds up the subsidiaries, the situation is seriously worse than it has been for a long time.

SAS’s press manager Freja Annamatz says that SAS is adapting to increased competition and new travel patterns. “This work includes optimisation of routes, which means evaluation and reallocation of routes between the various operating platforms. No jobs will be lost, but SAS is currently recruiting for all three platforms, SAS Scandinavia, SAS Link and SAS Connect, to meet the growing demand for travel,” she writes.

Source: Dagens Nyheter