Airlines in a Crisis

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

An unprecedented amount of planes having been stored for 3 or more months some wiht minimal serviceing, have led to issues coming to the fore as planes are being taken out of storae and put bsck into service. It could be a risky business at the beginning as new and earlier unforseeen problems are cropping up. The most is the air check valve which due to corrosion might stick in the open position resulting in compressor stalls, double engine failure and inability to restert either engine. Airlines might have been better circulating all their planes into service regularly, sample a different plane each day, than parking most and only actively utilizing the same select few, like Norwegian. Or at least flying the unused for passenger service planes regularly on small test, like Ryanair. Pennies (relatively) saved can quickly become dollars needed, or worse. There is a reason planes are stored long term in desert like conditions and not just on any airport that is cheap and have space.

The Ryanair principle is all passengers are the same. However none of their basic principles seems so strong they can't be broken. Take the free seating. Fallen by the wayside. Single queueing always with families and they who needed help boarding first. Also gone. Anything to make an extra buck looks like their new way. Could this lead to a 2 or more class division of the cabin. After all full service airlines saw it as a cheap way of charging twice as much, or more, for the tickets. But when does it then stop to be a Low Cost and just becomes another full service with slightly lower fares. Norwegian is running a 2 class principle with more spacious seating in its premium cabin. But then it is more a Low Fare than a fully Low Cost competitor. Yes is tempting for those quite a few extra quid some are willing to pay for a little more be it space, food or service. But how much does it cost to have 2 sets of cabin standards, 2 types of meals and, 2 types of queues. And how distract

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

No matter if they have their planes on pay by the hour, should Norwegian circulate both planes and pilots to keep them in certification and at peek performance. Neither Norway nor Europe is a desert where you can just park you planes and think they are in the same condition after a few months. And pilots need a certain amount of take offs and landings to keep their certificates current. Rotate at least regularly all instructors on both types of aircraft. It isn't a coincidence that Ryanair is starting up again before 4 months has passed, and that they have been doing regular touch and go's at their bases.