Airlines in a Crisis

An actual Chapter 11 because it was done in the US so they could continue flying with their subsidiaries and operate their bonus program. The cash situation in SAS must have been worse than previously announced because they have put all cabin crew on leave and are already scrambling to find a loan of 700 million dollars to help them through the reconstruction process. This must mean that most of the earlier announced 8 billion krona cash available was in reality prepayments from customers that is now running out fast as repayments for cancelled flights, and compensation because the non-flying wheren't notified 14 days in advance. How company management can prefer this process to a slower but still fully flying cost saving exercise is baffling. Or have they looked to much to what happened with Norwegian. Then they have forgotten that the Norwegian process happened in the middle of a pandemic where sources of refinancing where available from many sides and leasing companies where des...

All airlines should should take charge of their own destiny now and do their utmost to maximise income now instead of hibernating the pandemic and hope for better times. Arilines have massive set costs in the form of either massive leases or fleets of owned assets that rots fast without regular maintence and use. Always remember airline seats spoils as fast as soft fruit. Todays potential income can't be earned in tomorrow instead. And if you can't fly people there is plenty of other stuff that needs transporting.  A christmas present sent from Irleand to Norway in mid November arrived yesterday the 24'th of February. That is over 3 months in the post. Another one sent the same day from Ireland to Greece came back today after the airline contunously refusing to freight it. That is a complete let down by most airlines of their previous commitments to bring post around contributing to a worldwide organized and fast postal service. Every time I bing Cargo up in diverse forums ...

Accepting the plan for the future Norwegian maangment announced today 14/1-2021 is something creditors and leaseowners should think more than twice about. The key is in the details and the plan for 50 planes now but a rapid expansion to 70 already in 2022 is akin to a landgrab by management and a an asembled consortium of larger new shareholders. Meaning they under-size now before the vaccines has nullified the pandemic and then expand rapidly with significantly better lease deals as the markets recover. Another key sign is that only a very small amount of new shares are available to existing shareholders. If it awas all above board wouldn't they be given a fare share. The difference now is that its not up for another shareowner vote so in reality its a free for all for managment and whoever they are mixed in with. Next year, if profitable, and I can't see why covering maybe a 80% market with a 50% fleetsize, its time for big bonuses to top management and a rapid rice for the s...

The language in their lawsuit against Boeing in connection with their termination of the contracts for ExMax and Dreampliner deliveries is not sparing the expetives. A company in such a precarius position should be more careful when it comes to handling its in reality only supplier that it for a good while into the future still will be dependant on for the maintenance and value of its entire existing fleet. Could it be that top management of Norwegian do not really know what it entails to change from Boeing to Airbus, or the risk of going Chinese or Russian. After all they are lacking indepth airline experience between them, coming more from a finance and retail background. The pilot retraining and dual engineering maintenance and double parts storge costs alone would stop the company from being a Low Cost. And a Low Fares airline without corresponding Low Costs will be a loss making business no matter how many routes you cut or how much you shrink, or how many extra candybars you s...

The company have been busy reorganizing it's finance side with converting parts of loans and leases to shares to save the company, selling out the existing shareholders in the process. What have been missing is some operational management and ideas. One would think that with only 7 out of 160 planes in the air they would be on top of things, but no. Daily we read new articles about why they can't keep to in Norway mandated social distancing with middle seat free, and ecuses why. Do not say much for either management nor their IT systems or their control on the aircrafts. Since the newish CEO came in we have been waiting for when his operational plan for how Norwegian should be run would be announced. One certainly can't say he hit the ground running in that department. So far everything new is financial and under the former tempe CEO's remit Norwegian could doo so much more out of this crisis. They have 787's that can take air-containerized freight, but have sho...