SAS pilots go on strike as wage talks collapse

OSLO/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - SAS pilots in Norway, Sweden and Denmark went on strike on Friday as wage talks broke down, leading the carrier to cancel hundreds of flights, the company and mediators said.

A strike across the three Scandinavian countries could impact some 170,000 passengers during the weekend, the company said.

Labour unions had earlier this month called for 1,500 SAS pilots to go on strike on April 26 if no agreement was reached on wages and other issues after an earlier round of talks failed to bear results.

"The two sides were too far apart, and there was no reason to believe that a compromise could be reached," the office of the National Mediator of Norway said in a statement announcing the breakdown of the Norwegian talks.

A Danish mediator told Reuters talks had broken down there too, while SAS earlier announced a strike among its Swedish pilots.

"As a consequence of the strike, domestic, European and long-haul flights have been cancelled ... Flights operated by SAS Ireland and airlines that are subcontractors of SAS will not be affected," the airline added.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; editing by Jacqueline Wong and Gopakumar Warrier)