Scandinavian Airlines System CEO Rickard Gustafson has called Danish SAS employees for meetings on the drastic measures to be carried out at the airline but admits that employees have no choice but to accept conditions.

“My mandate is very limited,” Gustafson tells TV2News, adding that the Copenhagen meetings are not negotiations but the necessary dialogue meetings to give employees a better understanding of management plans.

“This is such a major upheaval that I have to go out and tell our employees why we have to do it. The have to understand the whole issue in order to be able to make their decisions. And that is what we are doing now,” Gustafson says.

Although he shies away from calling the SAS plan an ultimatum, he says that management sees no alternative to carrying the plan through.

“We have put forward a plan that we have to carry through in order to have the support of our owners and banks. That obviously does sound final,” Gustafson adds.

SAS cabin personnel in Denmark said today that the majority of their members would not be taking part in dialogue meetings.

SAS Cabin Crew is dismayed that management has appealed directly to Cabin Crew rather than their union, the Cabin Attendants Union (CAU).

“CAU accepts that this is an extraordinary situation, but it does not give licence to ignore the rules that are the foundation for negotiations between employers and employees in Denmark,” Christian Møller of CAU tells Ritzau.

The union expects SAS management to negotiate with CAU, which represents some 1,400 Danish cabin crew.

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