SAS' top executive said late on Thursday that the Scandinavian airline and its pilot unions in Sweden, Denmark and Norway had reached a deal to end a strike that has affected hundreds of thousands of travellers over the past week.

"I can with relief inform our customers and our staff that we now can put this conflict behind us. We have tonight signed a collective agreement with our four pilot unions," the chief executive, Rickard Gustafson, told a news conference. He said it would take up to 24 hours before operations were fully up and running again.