Scandinavian airline SAS canceled almost 70% of its flights on Friday as a pilots strike stranded thousands of tourists overseas, Reuters reported. Some 181 flights, or 69% of those scheduled, were canceled on Friday, data from flight tracker FlightAware showed. SAS has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights since Monday when talks between the airline and pilots over a new collective bargaining agreement collapsed. The carrier, whose biggest owners are the Swedish and the Danish states, filed for chapter 11 protection in the United States this week. It held a first court hearing on Thursday in a process SAS expects will take up to a year. Since the talks broke down the only movement has been work toward an agreement between SAS and unions allowing the carrier to bring home stranded charter passengers booked on flights operated by SAS. A SAS spokeswoman said about 18 planes were set to repatriate such travellers on Friday while a negotiator for Dansk Metal, representing Danish pilots, said unions were still seeking assurances the planes would be used for no other purpose.
