A full-scale war that also affect the SAS “- Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet

Norwegian’s latest gambit, to hire pilots from a Spanish staffing company, got compartment angering sharply and accusing the company of scabbing.

Hundreds of pilots in Norway, Sweden and Denmark strike. All Norwegian flights in Scandinavia have been canceled and tens of thousands of travelers suffer.

It is not about dollars and cents, not about rest periods or pensions. The trade unions is called conflict of ideological and claims that staff must be employed in the company where they work. Job security and employer responsibility are the watchwords when the union now sharpens tone.

While pressed Norwegian hard. The price war in aviation is now impacting even low cost carriers. Earlier it was those companies who pressured the traditional airlines as SAS and Lufthansa. But after undergoing steel vats, brought in contractors and outsourced employees of subsidiaries and staffing companies hitting the European aerospace giants back.

Since the turn of the century have prices on air tickets remained static, and costs have increased drastically. The airlines have been forced to downsizing and restructuring to cope with the competition and, not surprisingly, it has led to conflict.

What we now see in Norwegian has virtually all European airlines already gone through . It’s a trend that is recognized in many industries but led by aviation. It outsources parts of its business outside the parent company and then buys the services. The advantage is flexibility, but it comes at a price. The staff are almost always other agreements and arrangements in the new company.

Norwegian has his staff in several subsidiaries and unions are worried about internal competition, simply wanting them that costs the least.

Both parties have shown very clearly that it is serious and now await tough negotiations. No one wins in a prolonged conflict. The strike is costly both for the company and for the union but mainly leads turmoil that passengers prefer other companies. Just days after pilot strike broke out Norwegian noticed a decline in orders for domestic and typical business routes.

Flights row over risk to expand. Norwegian has laid off 800 flight attendants. Swedish Pilots have announced a sympathy strike against the company which enters into force on Wednesday evening, if no solution is reached before then. Norwegian compartment Parathyroid has asked the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union and the Union of sympathy action.

At the same time, SAS has entered into negotiations on the terms of its pilots. The collective agreement with the union has been terminated and will expire last March. The Norwegian air conflict will surely point the way.