Anko van der Werff has a new job. By the end of January he will leave the top post at Scandinavian Airlines to become president and chief executive of Air Canada, succeeding Michael Rousseau, who retired after a public controversy over his inability to speak French. Air Canada announced the appointment back in July; van der Werff has run SAS since 2021, according to the Globe and Mail. Presumably the airline did the usual due diligence — fleet plans, strategy, that sort of thing. The union representing Air Canada’s pilots has been doing its own due diligence, and it would like to discuss the results.
Here is what the union found. Last month, SAS fired Captain Mattias Åman Thiel. Thiel is not just any pilot on the roster: he chairs the SAS section of the Swedish Pilots’ Association, which is to say he is the person who sits across the table from SAS management, on behalf of its pilots, when pay and conditions are negotiated. The airline confirmed the dismissal to Radio-Canada but declined to say why it acted.
There are now two competing accounts of the firing. According to Tristan Okkonen, who chairs the Swedish Airline Pilots Association and worked closely with Thiel, the employer’s version is that Thiel travelled abroad at a time when he was supposed to be doing union work; similar allegations appeared in foreign media at the end of August. The union’s version, set out in court documents obtained by Radio-Canada, is that Thiel was working remotely. The union has asked the Swedish Labour Court to reinstate him and order SAS to pay damages.
We cannot and will not make exceptions or treat colleagues differently based on their position, seniority or personal relationships.
That is Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji, an SAS spokesperson, who otherwise would not comment on “individual employment matters,” beyond adding that the airline “strongly values the Scandinavian labour model and the important and constructive co-operation we have with our colleagues and their representatives.” Sit with the displayed quote for a moment, because it is doing a lot of work. The complaint against SAS is that it fired the union’s chairman. The airline’s answer is, in effect: precisely — his position earned him no special treatment whatsoever. On this logic, dismissing the man who represents his colleagues is not a blow against the union; it is a demonstration of scrupulous even-handedness. You can see why the unions are not entirely comforted.
The timing does not help. Okkonen said the firing came a few months after difficult salary negotiations between the pilots and the airline, and that last spring many SAS pilots refused to work overtime as an act of protest — an action he stresses the union did not order. “We are still in shock,” he told Radio-Canada. The union representing Air Canada pilots calls the dismissal a “retaliatory and anti-labour” act, and it has been joined in demanding Thiel’s reinstatement by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations, which speaks for more than 160,000 pilots worldwide.
Which brings us to the letter. Tim Perry, the president of ALPA Canada — the union for pilots at Canada’s major and regional airlines — wrote directly to van der Werff, in a letter obtained by Radio-Canada and copied to Vagn Sørensen, the chair of Air Canada’s board of directors. Perry called the dismissal “unwarranted,” echoed the demand to “immediately reinstate” Thiel, and then got to the point: “How you choose to respond will, without a doubt, be a clear indication on how you intend to engage with ALPA Canada pilots as you assume the leadership role at Canada’s largest airline.”
Pause on how unusual that is. Imagine, purely as a thought experiment, that you are about to take over an airline whose pilots you have never negotiated with. You would like the relationship to begin at zero, a blank ledger. What Perry is saying — politely, in writing, copied to your future chairman — is that the ledger does not open at zero. It opens with a liability incurred in Stockholm, and van der Werff can settle it now, while he still runs SAS, or carry it to Montreal and pay interest. Perry told Radio-Canada he plans to mobilize his members in support of the Swedish captain, and he observed that “a healthy relationship requires trust.” This is what mobilizing looks like before anyone has technically mobilized.
For now, nobody is settling anything. Van der Werff did not respond to Radio-Canada’s request for an interview. An Air Canada spokesperson said the airline does not comment on “a situation involving another carrier” — which is true, and will remain true, for another few months, until the other carrier’s former boss becomes this carrier’s boss and the situation becomes very much his own. The standard line for incoming chief executives is that every relationship starts fresh. The Air Canada pilots have helpfully proposed a way to make this one fresher: reinstate one captain in Stockholm. It would cost almost nothing. That is, of course, exactly what makes it a test.