OSLO (Reuters) -Scandinavian airline SAS has reached a wage deal with cabin crew in Norway, prompting workers to call off a strike that has grounded dozens of flights since it began late last week, the carrier and two labour unions said on Tuesday.
SAS, which has been under bankruptcy protection for more than two years as it works to reduce its debts and attract new investors, said the pay agreement would help the company move forward.
“We (can) now put our full focus on finalising the restructuring of SAS and set the course to build and grow a profitable airline,” senior company executive Kjetil Haabjoerg said in a statement.
Unions had threatened to expand their strike to include more cabin crew members from Wednesday unless a deal was struck. Some disruption was still expected on Tuesday, but SAS said flights should be back to normal by Wednesday.
Under the deal, employees will get a 7.5% wage increase along with more time off and longer meal breaks between flights, said Martinus Roekkum, head of the SAS Norway cabin association at labour union Parat.
Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions leader Joern Eggum called the agreement “a big and important win for our members”.
Some 120 SAS employees began striking on Friday, stranding thousands of passengers during the weekend and halting about 50 flights on Monday, to press their demands for better pay and working conditions following the collapse of earlier talks.
In 2022, a 15-day strike by SAS pilots grounded 3,700 flights, leading the airline to warn that the protest had put its survival at stake.
SAS filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on the second day of that strike after years of struggling with high costs and low demand, leading eventually to a court-approved takeover plan by hedge fund Castlelake, airline Air France-KLM, investment manager Lind Invest and the Danish state.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Isabelle Yr Carlsson;Editing by Louise Rasmussen, Tom Hogue and Helen Popper)
