Norwegian is taking risks again by rapid expansion

The CEO of Norwegian announced that they will take on an extra 30 planes closing in on 100 planes in the coming year. In addition to the planes they commited to after the restitution deal with Boeing, which one could have hoped would be used for aircraft replacements rather than even more expansion.

The company is taking high risks based on only 1 summer season and 1 autumn season of positive results. 2 seasons where their Scandinavian competitors where in trouble and therefore unable to compete much. SAS with their strikes and Chaper 11 and Flyr running out of cash to such an extent that their winter program runs only 4 out of the 12 planes they are paying leases for. 

That is a weak base for saying the market is so good that one should increase ones fleet with 50% in the short term. Growth costs and they'll be trying to find extra markets at a time when both SAS and Flyr could be doing the same.That do not bode well for a continued positive result for Norwegian.

Question is can they financially afford the fight or will it result in themselves also going to the capital markets for more funding at a time when risk willing capital is at short supply due to ever increasing interest rates. Specially if as rumoured Ryanair is building up their contracted ground capacity in the northern market.

It's like the leaders of Norwegian can't really settle with a 60 to 70 aircraft airline and have to get pack to the 100+ it once had as quickly as possible. Forgetting that to employ all those aircrafts old Nowegian had to go pretty far from it's Nordic base. I fear if Norse runs into real trouble Norwegian will not learn from that but rather do new attempts in that market to.

One thing can be said about that Norwegian. They are not much for sitting on their laurels and seeing the cash stream into their pockets. Neither in the old version or in this temporarily better financed new version. It is instead burning a hole in their pocket.

Some ice in the veins of one or more competitors would allow them to, with some carefully placed competition, bring Norwegian back to its former financially unstable self. 

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