Airlines in a Crisis

In Norway we have several examples on this. Norwegian was/is hq'd at Fornebyu that haven't been an airport for over 20 years. Flyr was hq'd in the overexpensive Oslo city center. And Norse hq'd in Arendal, a town without an airport and even further from Oslo airport than Oslo itself. The train connections from hq to airport might be frequent and only take halve to an hour but its not the same as a 10 minute walk to oversee where your real operations happens. The place where your customers experience your service and most of your critical costs are spent. But also the costs most easily squeezable. Closenes let you reduce the costs before they occur rather than just financially overseeing the bills in accounts after they have happened. That makes a difference when it comes to reducing costs through strict control.  And low costs are the most important for being able to underprise your competitors. Something all the beforementioned airlines tried and tries because they see...

SAS Forward plan is not going well. The savings they where to get from the pilots was just to big a hill to climb for the unions. Not only wouldn't SAS hire back direct 450 pilots let go under the pandemic. The company tried the ruse with som irish underling companies to hire further pilots on new contracts far from scandinavian union influence. A move that didn't work for Norwegian and now has ended in a total 3 country pilot strike for SAS. Even the last weeks of potential strike has probably brought new bookings down to near 0 because both sides have all the way talked about potential bankruptcy. And now when tens of thousands hollidaymakers every day is looking for alternatives in an already overfull market the SAS reliability it depended on for its necesseraly slightly premium prices is in the dumps. This is a case where all press is not good press. Wonder how Werf got on in negotiations between swedish, danish and norwegian dealbrokers, unionreps and SAS mgmt mainly repre...

Over time Norwegian should be split in 2 units under an umbrella managments to purify the single aircraft type principe of a true Low Cost airline. There can be no profitable Low Fares without Low Costs. The short haul (NSH) 737 part should concentratte on servinf te scandi/nordic market where it can capitalize on its namerecognition and customer belongingness. with additional routes from there to sun destinations and other Norwegian long haul hubs. The long haul (NSL) 787 part should be based elshewhere like Dublin or London Gatwick. Together with overall management of both companies. From here it would become the only really independent Low Fares intercontinental airline. All others are just offspring of full service airlines where the core of the company are not really in it 100%. Both parts should initially during the pandemic offer a Sanitized class and a Couldn't Care Less class (see other post) to appeal to the broadest market and get more flying. As time goes on they ...