Flying in the Nordics
 

Dear all,

*posting this here after i heard too many crickets in the Nordics forum*

Im flying for some years now in an Airline in the middle-east. Not those fancy big ones you know but a small one you probably never heard of in a country that rhymes with Hell.
Anyway, my Danish wife had enough and got a job offer in Stockholm of all places. Excited and joyful i started to do some research about working in the Nordics. Went for the big ones and even got to talk with a Captains in TUI based in Stockholm and SAS connect based in CPH. They even sent me some contract screenshots.
Boy was i in for a surprise. An FO in the first year in my company will make what a captain in his 6th year is making in SAS. And that is without working that hard. i.e maybe one night sleeping in something other then your bed at home.
Shaky and pale, surely, that cannot be I said.
Factoring for the difference in cost of living, the quality of life, etc, perhaps the gap is becoming a bit smaller.
But, and here is where you come in, i was compering our actual gross salary (with bonuses and extras and all) with the base salary of SAS and TUI is i saw per the contract.
Can anyone shed some light about the actuall gross salary one can expect?
I wonder, and thats more a philosophical question, how come the differences are so massive? Have you not strong unions? Are the life with 40k SEK really good living in Stockholm?

Thanks,

Contracts in the nordics mostly suck hard. Big reason I wont return. Cost of living have also gone up significantly!

Tradesmen are commanding close to 1000 euros a day (in reality half a day!!!). Try getting anything close to that flying in Scandi?

If you are hell bent on coming back(or your wife more likely) your best bet is to get a job in CPH paid in DKK and settle in the South part of Sweden. At least that way you will benefit from some significant exchange rate mark up. But only come home for quality of life, money is not here and never will.

Best
H

Not if you've got kids, Danish social security is weaker than Swedish on that part.

It all depends on where you're in life and what you're after. I tend to reason that if you want to extract max value for the money in the Nordics you should spend your life here, use the educational system and the healthcare. I left a well paid aviation job to start at the bottom of the senioity list and boy did it hurt the first few years with commuting and all.

If you're in it purely for the money, yes earnings in DKK and cost of living in SEK or NOK is the best.... for now. But expect to start at the bottom of the seniority list regardless of previous experience, there is no way around it. The salary they sell you when you start is a career package. It starts low and increases every year as you move up the 25 odd steps on the salary ladder. Adjustments for inflations come on top of that.

SAS has had three industrial actions since 2017, yes, the unions are strong. Mostly for damage control.

You've looked at TUI and SAS only, have you considered Norwegian? SAS will likely recruit for years to come, not sure about the others.