Capt H -
You are well informed but I would like to add some info to that which you informed us of:
Yes, Braathens paid a good deal of money but it was an act of desperation, brought on by it's bigger brother. At the time, global alliances were quickly forming and KLM and Braathens were working very closely. When BU aquired MalmöAviation (TF), SAS was only two days away from buying TF. The whole deal was just about to be signed when KLM got a hold of the news and urged BU to quickly purchase TF ahead of SAS.
Secondly, SAS did not demand that MalmöAviation was to be released before SAS aquired BU, but rather the swedish competition laws did not allow SK to own TF, as it would give SK a monopoly on the swedish domestic market, ie. it was a prerequisite for the SK takeover of BU.
This was not valid however at the earlier state, when SK was interested in TF because at that point Transwede was still operating independentely and had some of the swedish domestic market share, albeit a small part...
As you all can see it is a quite complicated and intriguing history that brought us to where we all are now.
And as for HC asking me to keep to my own topic, I can inform you that as for the relevancy to that topic I can reveal this:
When BU aquired MalmöAviation and later (with great incompetancy!!!) merged Transwede and MalmoAviation in to one single entity, then called "Braathens MalmöAviation" (very imaginative!
) there were talks held between the TF and BU unions on how to eventually merge seniority lists and work on a single union deal.
At that point in time, the TF pilots were approached as being 2nd class pilots by BU union, and the BU union constantly reminded TF pilots of "who it was who aquired who". In the end no such deal was ever struck due to the "arrogancy" of the BU union.
For some reason the BU pilots now seems to have forgotten their own attitude towards the smaller company at that time and now calls for equal rights on all points!
One should remember one's history....
HC - I hope this ties my posts back to the original topic enough to please you.
Regards,
KADS