Day:323, Words:323

You may recall the days of frustration I endured a few months ago when trying to book the cheapest, most direct and safest flights from Alta, Norway to Melbourne Australia. The journey is long and the exercise in making everything connect, why securing enough waiting time but not too much waiting time between flights is a tough gig. When I had finally found the perfect combination, the website would inform me that those tickets at that price was not actually available. Anyway after much angst, I finally locked in the tickets at a less than fanstastic price, but not obscene. At that point, I thought the flight searching was behind me....until today.

It turns out that the oldest, most realiable and seemingly most stable Scandinavian airline is in deep excrement. Despite a massive company being run in three of the most stable economies, SAS airlines is in big trouble and at this stage likely to go broke which would mean a sudden halt to all services. At the moment, there is a stand off between the unions of the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish divisions of SAS and the owners, who need to prove to the banks that they can pay their debts. The way to pay their debts is to start making a profit and for that happen costs need to be cut. Reduced wages and increased hours is on the table with the other posibility being the loss of many if not all jobs. The governments have already bailed out SAS once before and at the moment the immediate future looks bleak and very short.

As my entire journey, depends on the SAS company getting me to Copenhagen, I began frantically look into a contingency plan. At best, I would lose over 8000 kr, but secure a flight on SAS competitor Norwegian Air. The worst case scenario would see the holiday start with a tiresome train ride, or an incredibly long drive.

 

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