I listened to the press conference with the SAS CEO speaking after they had reached a settlement. Amongst a lot of things he said that without SAIL, SAS would no longer be able to serve London. What? Granted, I am but a humble bus driver and the intricacies of European airline economics is certainly no expertise of mine, but ALL major European carriers serve LHR. BA flies LHR to ARN as does Finnair with their own crews. Presumably also to Oslo and CPH. Norwegian only serves Gatwick. Am I really supposed to believe that SAS cannot do so using their own people? Is the SAS cost structure so fantastically bloated? Or is it merely and old and tried trick to weaken established unions?
I have flown on SAS. They are quite frankly a pretty horrible airline. And thats coming from a guy that flies for AA!! Not exactly a beacon of airline excellence! No disrespect to any SAS employee on the forum but if SAS wants to compete long term they really need to focus on their inflight product, not establishing secondary subsidiaries using flags of convenience.