Norwegian's financial mess was building over a long time due to less than optimal cost control

There is things surfacing that indicate the financial expertise within Norwegian was more in getting financing and avoid paying leases rather than in cost control.

It sems like different stakeholders have through the years done their besst to milk the company dry thus stopping it from building up profits for a rainy day fund. There are talk about pilots being well paid, sometimes double tariff for working on days off, which indicates that operations and crew control was not too well managed either. 

These are growth pains that comes to light in many companies, including Ryanair with their well known roster screw up a couple of years ago. But Ryanair could afford it and have been busy ever since getting out of the union deals the problems led them into, finally mostly resolved by using the CoVid19 crisis to get low low and long term 5 year deals with their staff.

In Norwegian on the other hand they who should keep an eye on the bottom line have instead concentrated on getting more financing rather than control unnecessary cost, in addition to focusing on getting basic flying passenger income up. Operations can't have been to well driven either if they couldn't handle filling their crew rosters the cheapest way in the first place. OVertime and uying back peoples day off is an expensive business. No wonder their cost per passenger was higher than their income per passenger in the last full financial year of 2019.

It seems like there are more than management and reluctant shareholders that can be blamed for Norwegian's financial crisis. Had all stakeholders been leaning a litle more to keeping the company healthy rather than lining their own pockets the adventure could have lasted longer. Norway ain't the US and Norwegian owned airlines are neither a matter of national pride, critical infrastructure or a necessity. A little more restraint, support of who provides you the paycheck and dare I say honesty in good times, might have saved many employees positions in not so great times. But of course in Norway the unemployment benefits are extraordinary good and linked to your income in the previous 3 years. 

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