Norwegian is still not an airline for consolidation and playing it safe for profit

Gei Karlsen, the CEO of Norwegian, learnt his airline craft during a wild expansion and is now looking to recreate that.

Just before he announce a 17 mill euro profit for the summer season 2021, he announce 17 more planes for the fleet. At least he didn't pay extra to get the ExMax, for now but did say that that was an option for the future.

He is also going to park a large part of the fleet during the winter months and is negotiating hard with the unions for some solution on what to do with the flying crews during that period. Will it be a long vacation or will it be halve the hours for everybody. The need to keep pilots current may play in here.

But he didn't stop there. They day after the results he is hinting to that he want to expand further and think Norwegian can handle a fleet of 80 aircraft with the administrative staff they already have on board today.

The parking will be helped financiall by some power by the hour deals for the winter season but maintenance will still have to be kept up. Something Norwegian neglected in the pandemic year of 2020 up until their almost complete bankruptcy. Not a path to be followed if they are to keep the lessors onboard this time. 

One can in a way understand Karlsen's itchy feet in that the main local Scandinavian competitor SAS seem to be in continued trouble, vut that could just be a Van Werf play to get more concessions from the employees. And others like Flyr is starting very carefully with less than 10 planes and overstretching to see of them seems a bit risky. After allt here is a, for airlines always, harsh winter ahead when very few make a profit even at the best of times. And with already rising CoVid19 numbers this winter will not be that.

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