Airlines in a Crisis

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

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

If one as the Norwegian party Senterpartiet (Centrist) suggested had given the airline Norwegian 20 billion nkr, the future for the company would have been less rosy than one would think. As opposite to the future of the many who would have filled their pockets. Management would have rewarded themselves well with some exuberant, for Norway to be, bonuses for saving the company. As Gustafson of SAS did after persuading staff to so deep cuts in their terms and renumerations some years ago. The lease- and bondholders would see to that all past and future rents and payments would be paid well in advance, as the big shareholders they are. All the unions would then come in and fight hard to see to that their members got their share of the cake and more, plus lay paid to any demands for performance improvements. Nobody would fight for neither future profits or any streamlining of the company into something that would be anything else than a future drain and per passeenger loss busines. None o

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

Some airlines are singing the poor man tune to their staff at the same time as they are announcing postivity about the future to the stock markets. Can their eagerness to plead the crisis to get support and cheap loans from governments combine with the need to keep their share prices high to please owners and secure the share price their own bonuses and share options depends on. The Ryanair unions are certainly copping on to that not every thing is like it seems and telling the airlines management they can't have it both ways. Themselves agreeing only to a 1 year cut in their own salaries while saying to their staff that they must take a 5 year cut. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-conornavirus-ryanair/unions-say-ryanair-exaggerating-covid-threat-to-undermine-conditions-idUKKBN22W1YZ This reminds me of how healthy a bonus the SAS CEO got out of negotiating down his staff terms and conditions while that airline was in a crisis a few years back. Even in a crisis the have