– Everything is possible – V.G

Stockholm / Oslo (VG) After holding talks until 8pm on Thursday, the parties to the SAS conflict met again on Saturday morning.

Jan Levi Skogvang, president of the SAS Norwegian Pilots Association in Barat, met reporters on his way to the 10 o’clock meeting. He was asked what the expectations were for the day:

– We will meet and discuss together and move forward. He says we have to start somewhere and then see how far we go.

– It is a perfection. Nothing is done until everything is done.

– Will it end in a breach?

– Everything is possible. There are more difficult things here, he says.

On Saturday, pilot leaders will take a stand on the written proposals SAS is working on tonight.

– When we read texts, it’s a bit easier to see how close or far you are. Let’s look at a deal and see how good it is. After that it will be voted on by our members.

Expect a shorter wait

Henrik Thyrekot, president of the Danish Pilots Association, spoke briefly to reporters before Saturday morning’s meeting.

– I don’t know the new model. I think this is a misunderstanding. I hope for a solution, but we will see,” he says when asked if he will see a new model.

– The contracts we make must be in writing. It takes time. I am sure that today we will take a position on a text proposal. We are working with several recommendations. Lots of papers. If there is a will, I think that would be a solution, he says.

Thyrekot also says they expect less wait today than yesterday.

– I expect the wait to be shorter today.

SAS’s chief negotiator Marianne Hernæs says they worked through the night:

– We will keep high pressure throughout the day and expect to be able to agree on important things. We have been working all night. We take point by point, increase to find agreement, and finally see if we can agree on a whole.

Norway’s national mediator, Mats Wilhelm Ruland, said they would continue to work systematically through the remaining issues today.

– I’m still optimistic, I think we’ll get more growth today, but it remains to be seen. He says there is no guarantee.

– How close are the parties now?

– I can’t say. Some important issues remain unresolved.

– Do you think you will sit until the evening?

– Hard to say. From experience: Yes. But this is not a given that we do, but if I had to judge anything, I would judge that we sit all day until evening. Through mediation there is communication with the parties and then mediations have different phases where you have to do different things. Some sessions require the parties to work separately, while other sessions require you to sit together. The mediator says that there was communication between the two parties yesterday and they spoke together.

He thinks Saturday will be a two-parter as well.

– Parties moved. This is positive, but not enough movement to achieve the goal. Achieving a solution here requires more movement, says Ruland.

– Is this common with multiple postponements like there was here?

– I can only comment on what is common in Norway, which is quite unusual. In a normal main settlement the mediation is only one or two, maximum four days. So I can say that this is an absolutely extraordinary mediation.

– What does it mean that the party members have been sitting for so many days?

– That tells me that the parties have a genuine desire to resolve this here. In that case it is unlikely that their positions would be tangent. Both have a vested interest in making it happen.

While the parties were in talks on Friday night, SAS management was set to work through the night with a proposal for the pilots.

This morning, pilot chiefs said they had been waiting a long time for SAS’s proposals.

Skokwang said on Friday that he was surprised that SAS was having such a good time:

– SAS looks like a good time. We’ve been around for a long time now, and you seem to be having a good time, and we’re losing 130 million a day: that’s a lot of money. We thought it might be a little more urgent.

SAS’s chief negotiator Hearns disagreed with Skokwang’s opinion, which SAS has long used.

– We have tried to develop the content that we want to provide to the pilots, and it will take time, Hernes said.

Norwegian SAS Pilots Association (NSF) president Roger Cloxet said earlier on Friday. NRK:

– We did not reach an agreement, but we did not reach the wall.

Loses money

Accordingly it is Saturday VGs flight specialty A total of 133 flights were cancelled. Of these, 131 were SAS flights.

SAS estimates that the strike will result in losses of NOK 100-130 million per day.

As of Thursday, the strike had cost the company up to 1.3 billion Swedish kroner, the equivalent of about 1.27 billion Norwegian kroner. On Saturday, we are at around NOK 1.53 billion.