Airlines in a Crisis

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 experience from

Norwegian did not spend the time well since the last injection of government loans. Too much concentration on finding finance too little on what makes an airline a viable business.  They could have gone for doing more cargo. If they by now transported halve of the Norwegian international post and a large portion of its exportable airfreight products if would have given the Norwegian government a reason for why the company needed saving.  They could have marked them out as bringing something extra to the CoVid19 table by, as the only airline in Europe, offering to transport the nervous in a socially distancing environment by at least offering the option of middle seat free in parts of the cabin. For 50% extra on the ticketprice off course. Then the politicians could have said look what Norwegian brings to the table, we need that, lets give them a helping hand.  Instead they decided to spend all their effort and most of their time in scouring for finance. Not easy to come by when y