Despite its admitted financial difficulties, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has approached the Estonian government with an offer to buy out the 34 percent stake it owns in Estonian Airlines. SAS already owns 49 percent of Estonian Airlines. Read the full story

The financially squeezed Nordic carrier, Scandinavian Airlines, has announced it will be cutting 5,000 of its normally scheduled departures from Copenhagen Airport during the winter season due to greatly decreased customer demand. Twenty-five destinations will be affected by the cutback, with flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Hannover, Cologne, Stuttgart, Brussels, Prague and Manchester most greatly reduced. Read the full story

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has announced that it sent an Airbus A340-400 on Saturday from Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport to Thailand to help repatriate stranded Scandinavian tourists caught up in the political turmoil engulfing the Thai capital Bangkok. Read the full story

In direct competition with Scandinavian Airlines SAS, budget carrier easyJet has started flying to and from Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport to both Milan and Geneva. On 27 October the first easyJet planes took off thus adding these two popular cities to its list of European low-cost destinations. Read the full story

The recent spate of in-flight airline emergencies that has plagued carriers like Qantas, United and Spanair, can now include Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). An SAS flight travelling from Gardemoen in Norway to Stockholm was forced to make an emergency landing in Vasteras after the plane began to fill with smoke.

The Boeing 737 was bound for Stockholm’s Read the full story

Scandinavian airline SAS’s shares were temporarily suspended on Monday after Reuters reported that the airline has opened the first round of merger talks with Germany’s Lufthansa, Europe’s second-largest airline. There has been speculation that SAS would merge for several weeks now, and if Lufthansa can seal a deal it would solidify its already strong position in Europe’s air Read the full story

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has voted to lay off 50 of its senior pilots, apparently in response to the current economic crisis in the air travel industry, according to Aftenposten. The layoffs are also likely related to the ongoing struggle between older and younger pilots, as younger pilots have been accused of trying to intimidate their senior counterparts into retirement.

Read the full story

An atmosphere of bullying has emerged between the younger and older pilots who fly planes for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), reports Aftenposten.no.

Aviation authorities are concerned that this behaviour could affect passenger safety and are demanding that SAS put a stop to it.

The group of younger pilots at SAS are reportedly bullying older pilots over the age of 60 in an attempt to get them to quit. Numerous derogatory emails, text messages and other threats have been levied at the older pilots in an attempt to drive them out of SAS, according to the newspaper Dagsavisen.

One 63 year-old pilot told Dagsavisen that pilots aged 60 and over are regularly called “bags of dirt, whores and pimps” by younger pilots. Another veteran SAS pilot was reportedly threatened to have his legs broken if he did not quit his job. This infighting has Norwegian aviation authorities very concerned that the conflicts are endangering the safety of passengers and crew.

The bullying seems to be a result of pending staff cutbacks at the financially strapped airline. The younger pilots are trying to protect their own jobs by bullying the older pilots into retiring early. But SAS pilots union representative Jens Lippestad states there is an existing agreement that all SAS union pilots retire at the age of 60. The fact that many aren’t retiring at that age is creating the tension.

SAS officials, meanwhile, deny there is any bullying problem between its pilots despite the results of a survey in which 160 of 800 pilots reported they were being harassed.

Although Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is experiencing economic troubles, like many other airlines, the company has affirmed that the employment of its pilots is secure. According to reports in Aftenposten, as many as 1,000 jobs with the airline are in jeopardy; however the pilots’ positions are quite secure.

Pilots for the Scandinavian company are, on average, 50 years old. Most pilots are paid between NOK 900,000 to 1.2 million (USD 175,000 to 234,000).

According to reports in the daily newspaper Dagsavisen, the pilots recently signed an agreement with SAS securing their job and salary levels and ensuring that their salary will increase by 12 to 13 percent in the future.

The salary increase translates to a total of NOK 100,000 (USD 20,000) for each individual pilot annually.

According to Jens Lippestad, the union leader for the pilots, the agreement over the pilot’s salaries is “acceptable”. Others, however, might not understand how the airline could have agreed to such a drastic increase in pilots’ wages considering its need to cut costs and scale back.

Scandinavian Airlines System was founded in 1946 and currently operates from hubs in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The airline is a member of the Star Alliance and flies to 112 destinations. In 2006, the airline flew 25 million passengers.

SAS Scandinavian Airlines has announced a new marketing campaign which embraces a variety of languages. The campaign uses local languages in English-language advertisements.

According to one of the airline’s general managers, Scandinavian languages reflect the unique culture and style of the northern region. Like the design that comes out of the region, the language also reflects the sleek, stylish nature of Scandinavia.

According to BusinessWire, the advertising campaign, which uses Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, was launched in the United States in newspapers. The advertisements will appear in New York, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, as well as on the radio in New York. The ads will appear, as well, in Europe and in six nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

“The Scandinavian languages are unique, and we have chosen to communicate words with letters such as å, ä, æ and ø, which can only be found in our languages,” said Jørgen Holme, SAS director of marketing for the Americas. “By doing so we have created eye-catching ads that truly stand out and create an interest, as well as an obvious link to Scandinavia and SAS.

“Our new ads have a clean design, which is very Scandinavian in itself, and in combination with using a Scandinavian word and an image of our aircraft it is clear that we are an airline communicating our heritage and our extensive route network in Scandinavia and Northern Europe,” Holme said.