Airlines in a Crisis

On Max 9 an extra emergency exit door is replaced with a blank if you don't want it instead of not cutting the hole for it in the first place. And it was mechanically fastened instead of welded in place. And since the inner panel is just a normal panel making it impossible to do frequent checks on the blank, of course it eventually fell out taking the inner panel with it. And in this case after only 147 flights. That is less than 1 year in use.  On the other hand larger (in the hundreds) and original Max orders like the one from Ryanair get its own no mentioning of Max version number (737-8200) and  just uses a easily inspected normal door as it was originally designed for. This hole covered by a blank must be a financial quick fix to avoid producing 2 different versions of the airframe (with or without a door hole) and not something engineers recommended. And with it came a number of uncertainties, lets call them risks, that for the economists was a case of numbercrunchi...

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...

Latest they accounted as income nearly 500 million nkr worth of unused and expired bonus points they had booked as expenses when customers earned them before the pandemic and before old Norwegian went bust. This comes in addition to the couple of billion nkr of future discounts Boeing gave them as repatriation for earlier problems old Norwegian had with the Boeing planes. New Norwegian also booked this in as income for 2022. In quarter 4 with twice as much income as the year before they managed to only loose about the same as the year before. Is that good, bad, nah or neither. It does point to that they still have problem with growing in a profitable way. Then we come to the the 7,8 billion nkr they say they have in cash. How much of this is unearned payments from future customers. The current CEO Karlsen used to count that as cash when he was just chief of finance in old Norwegian. That went bad in 2020 when they couldn't fly those customers, they all wanted refunds and no new mon...

SAS new route announcements seems to be more of the same. More flights from airports in Sweden to the US. More airports around New York. They have added flights from Gothenburg and Jylland which is ok I guess since the hop via Arlanda or Copenhagen is a bit of an iritation. Specially with the troubles due to staffing Arlanda had last summer. They have added JFK in addition to Newark for New York. Big wup regarding destination. And more costs for SAS to a more expensive airport. Unless they would want to become just a longhaul and swedish connections airline they should rather go for more direct connecting within Europe. SAS closed a lot of them during the pandemic and they don't seem to be coming back. There are now no diret SAS Oslo to Dublin flights. That is no direct connection between a Scandinavian capital city and another capital city in Europe.  And there is still no direct flight whatsoever between Dublin and Trondheim. Connecting via Copenhagen or Arlanda will cost you a w...

He recently announced that he had plenty of time before any further 737 orders where forthcoming saying that another world shock disruption would have to come first so he could again get preferential pricing. The ExMax was never such a gamechanger that Ryanair has been spreading about. 10% more seats than the 737-800 and slightly more effective engines do not give enough green credentials that it impresses any politician when everybody is dreaming about electric planes. And for Ryanair shareholders its just a few percentage points more potential profit for an increasingly short timeframe until something more drastically have to happen about the future of flying. Unless transport of people by air is to go into a permanent decline at the hands of the climate change brigade. It could also be that Ryanair has reached the long touted optimum sice of aircrafts, round 200. They are dividing into not only more marketing names but operations to. Or that the current top management have run out o...

Or rather can he survive without giving up his 11 million bonus. Or should the question be, will he, since it could take him 2 years to make it back. Question is how much does he want to be CEO or is it just the money that drives him. There is surely another company he could rescue from the brink through financial wizardry. Schram, the former CEO of Norwegian lasted 18 months. More because ofthe support of a weak board with litle shareholder backing but at the same time without any shareholder unity or even a strong such. And a chairman without much airline background that maybe of that reason picked a CEO without any at all. As soon as kind of new strong shareholders came in and the chairman that picked him for the CEO role was out, so was he. But is Karlsen what Norwegian needs now. When he came in as CFO he either had any airline background but was a part of the Fredriksen sphere. Fredriksen is again a large shareholder in Norwegian but the time for finanzial wizardry might be vanin...

How many airline have ben supportive as governments around the world have tried to handle a worldwide pandemic crisis. Today KLM tried to force the retraction of the dutch governments demand of negative tests even for crew by threatening to stop all it's Transcontinental and even european flying that would demand a crew layover to not risk that a crewmember with a postitive test was left behind. A behaviour more akin to O'Leary trying to change tax hikes by dropping all routes from certain airports than a national airline having the word Royal in its name. Even coming with stories how they have to stop trans-shipping vaccines to countries in South America with tremendous Covid19 problems. Apart from the sudden concern over crew, that was lacking before, can't see why KLM couldn't operate flights with double, or treble or quarduple or whatever it takes, sets of crews so no crew leaves the plane or stays over and everybody comes back. To at least bring out the vaccines. M...

Airlines is hoping a demand for certificate of vaccination for passengers will free up the travel world so people again can fly freely. Ryanair even advertising jab to fly. There are a couple of flies in the oinkment. With more than 7 billion people in the world and wealth extremely unevenly spread, at some stage there will be a cry for fairer distribution of the vaccines produced.  Several countries are already talking about not vaccinating people under 45 with no underlying health issue. We don't want fighting in the queue among all the others because airlines demand vaccination and eager travellers getting in front of they for whom the jab might mean the difference between actual life and death. As in contrast to just the financial health of the travel industry but not actual death for its owners and employers. There are certainly enough squabbling in the queue already with policeforces trying to get vaccinated before the nurses, fishermen before the elderly and doctors grabbing...

Soon the Boeing 737 ExMax will be approved for transporting passengers also in Europe, the plane will have got the necessary updates and the airlines will trained their crew. Then comes the question on how to get it back in the air without upsetting to many customers.  Airlines like Ryanair that have high frequency routes like Dublin-London or Norwegian's Oslo-Trondheim can put 1 into a roster of 3-4 aircrafts on the routes and offer anyone nervous to change to a later departure free of charge. Potentially put off by a long queue and without knowing exactly when that departure is some will change their mind. Others will after changing not think its worth the hassle the next time, or the next after that. To minimise agro this should be offered by a single customer service agent at every Max departure so the customer see its available there and then and don't have to return to sample departure hall and do security again. The added bonus is that when people change flight by person...

 And with taking on I don't mean competing against them but rather swallowing the juicy parts of it. What do Norwegian have that could be attractive to Ryanair:  It has a loyal following in Norway and parts of Scandinavia . A following that want Low Fares but loats Ryanair. It has a well established net of routes within Scandinavia and domestically within Norway that Ryanair would have a problem copying without diluting its own union stance and cost base. It is positioned at the more premium part of Low Fares with a less agitating policy against customers. This could be expanded upon incorporating some more Low Cost basics for profitability. And without messing up the Ryanair image anc cost base like its own Always Getting Better efforts have done to the bottom line lately. It has a Transatlantic/Transcontinental fleet and a worked up net of routes and we all know how O'Leary have long wanted to somehow do Transatlantic Low Cost. A part that could be split out from Norwegian S...

The main Low Fares encumbents ( = they with the Lowest Costs) in the European landscape are taking wildly different approaches to the first full winter of the CoVid19 pandemic.  Wizz is seeking opportunities where they appear and quickly moving into markets where the (semi) incumbent is in trouble. Sample in Norway where they have announced and quickly started their first domestic routes and announced even more to come when Norwegian went to the courts for protection. By the time any other seeking opportunities come looking post vaccine, Wizz will already have operated on the routes for more than 6 months. Ryanair on the other hand has spent the CoVid19 crying about different governments actions, and their response to pandemic changes is to kick the toys out of the pram and abandon routes and airports. Exactly as they used to do when an airport tried to introduce new charges. You haven't seen them really anounce an entry into any really new market, just adjusting frequencies in tho...

 There are always some Norwegians willing to buy small amounts of shares just because its an airline and its name is Norwegian. But not that manry and they are not that flush with cash that it will make a difference.  The current majority shareholders, the lease owners, are unvoluntering shareowners and its doubtfull if thwy will go for the same stunt again. And they have expressed that they don't want to own airlines. If they let the floodgates open there could be many other airline in financial need that would pay for their leased aircraft in shares instead of readies. A trade sale or trade investor is always a possibility. If the share price should fall to let#'s say 10 ore or 1 penny the whole share capital could be bought for 300 million nkr or 30 million euro. An investment instead of lets say 50 million nd nulling of the old shares would get you a solid foothold in the Scandinavian market including Scandinavia to the sun/med. Other airlines have done similar investments...

Now when the main subject of my last article has taken the consequences and partly thrown in the towel we can speculate on if Norwegian have a future as an independent airline. CityJet might have come out of its protction as a leaner and stronger ailine, maybe, but they where a very small airline, a shadow of their former self already, with a well connected Irish businessman founder/leader and some guaranteed income wetleas contracts in their pocket. They came out of the process as an airline that no longer sell seats or fly scheduled routes under their own name. Surprised O'Leary  haven't made an appearance regarding Norwegian going lets call a spade a spade, bust. Ireland has a very small and concentrated aviation environment and those leasing companies that have planes at Norwegian have a lot more at Ryanair. In addition to that most of them grew out of the Ryanair original owner Tony Ryan's own leasing company. And many in the circuit including overseers onece worked fo...

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 f...

The airline business has always been a cyclical roller coaster of ups and down and its sesoned participants would do well in remembering that after 7 fat years comes 7 meagre ones, not always on that schedule. How you handle it is different from country to country and sometimes from company to company.  American airlines sway from one crisis to the next paying out all they cane to management, share- and other stakeholders in the good times. Always relying on that their government will see them as critical infrastructure and always bail them out. Privatise profits and socialise losses. The top management of Ryanair on the other hand remembers 9/11 very well and have ever since insisted on holding on to as much cash and building up as much equity in the company as possible. They are a large company in a small and not very rich economy so they know they have to handle any coming crisis on their own.  Norwegian fell into it because their current top management have minimal experie...

  If the Wizz air chief is right in that CoVid19 will lead to a permanently reduced airline passenger market combined with more direct flights and much less hub and spoke, then the LoCo's are going for the wrong aircraft with their demand for more and more seats per aircraft. More direct routes and less demand should mean a market of planes with less seats each to avoid the booking confusion of trice weekly flights instead of daily. After all sample Ryanair made their lo-co start with 130 seat planes, then 186 seat and soon they will be up to 200 and then 220 with an extra cabincrew. Larger planes and still just 2 pilots in them might lower costs per seat but if they have to keep fire-selling the seats could it decrease profit per planeload.

 There are speculations that Ryanair will place a further 150 ExMax orders before Christmas if the plane is given the all clear to fly again by then. But in case what would this order consist of. To get the best deal they would probably have to take some of the estimated 100 white tails. These are built planes where the customer have gone or cancelled the order and most of them are of versions 8 or 9. Ryanair have ordered version 10 with 230 seats a longer fuselage, an extra emergency exit and a levered landing gear to avoid tail strikes. Not many of them are built or abandoned. Running 2 types of the airplane would be against the grain of Ryanair. However the group now consists of 3 airlines. Ryanair DAC, Buzz, Malta Air and Lauda. And the last one have earlier this year abandoned its Airbus order. There is nothing in the Low Cost rulebook saying that Lauda couldn't be an ExMax 9 only airline. Lauda air is the airline for the german speaking part of Europe. One could speculate in ...

What is Norwegian doing. They have only managed to fly 10% of the number they flew last year. Ryanair on the other hand have flown 50% on 2/3 of the amount of flights they flew last year. That is about 72% of seats on every flight sold compared to 97% for same period last year. This lead to that Ryanair had no problem getting in an extra 400 million cash from sale of new shares. This is about twice what Norwegian says they need to get through the next 6 months. But who is going to invest in a company that already this year have burnt their shareholders. In fact a  company that has made a habit of doing it nearly every year. Not without getting in some new brooms rather than the one that after just a few months in the job abandoned them alltogether. Fact is in the airplane business there is always some crisis going. 9/11, oil price above USD 100 and whole fleets grounded. One can't just hibernate and wait them out but need to produce whatever one can no matter what the circums...

A number of airlines in the US is practicing middle seat free on flights to provide some degree of social distancing. No airline in Europe have taken this aboard to try to improve the public confidence in that flying can be safe weven in pandemic times. Although Ryanair was once modelled on Southwest, it's leader have been outspoken on how unwilling they are on doing anything to placate its potential customers worries.. While Sothwest is practicing middle seat free and have promised its potential passengers to continue to do so. At some stage even European airlines will hopefully come to the conclusion that even bargain basement fares is not going to entice the large majority of the audience back to flying. And with the capacities they have built up they can't live on the 25% of the population that don't care and will travel anyhow and anyway. Even if they could bully governments to lift restrictions, they can't bully the nervous and wait and see majority of the pub...

SAS have abandoned their bases in 2 airports in Norway. One of them serves the county's 3 largest city Trondheim and the other serves the oil capital of Norway Stavanger. Since Norwegians are early risers there remains question over if there still will be first wave flights out of these airports. Low costs don't run first wave out of non base locations ince then they would have to overnight crew in hotels. That is one of the reasons Ryanair have(had) over 80 bases around Europe. A low cost principle is every crew home in own bed at night. Now SAS is what is called a network airline that offers a certain amount of service. However as such it is not a very profitable one. The argument is that crew from other bases can overnight in hotels for a first wave departure but this rises the cost considerably. Not only the accommodation and food costs but also the crew on the last flight in can't really fly the first flight out because their rest period will be to short. And if th...