The flight strands nearly 11,000 passengers on the eve of the long Ascension Day holiday weekend. In many small and remote communities around the country, Widerøe is the only airliner.
The flight attendants are striking not for higher pay or better work hours, but for the right to determine their own pension programs. “Today only the pilots have negotiating rights over their pensions,” the flight attendants’ lead negotiator in their labour organization Parat, Lars Petter Larsen, told NRK. Parat believes the flight attendants, the vast majority of whom are women, should have the same pension rights.
Widerøe is the largest regional airline in Scandinavia, with a staff of 1,400 and a turnover of NOK 3.2 billion (€421 million). The company carries around 2.5 million passengers annually and flies to 41 domestic and 6 international destinations. Widerøe has for decades been the largest and most important in northern Norway.
The strike comes just days after it was announced that Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) sold Widerøe to a group of Norwegian investors.
