Airlines in a Crisis

The rescue plan leeks seem to be pretty consistant on that the future of Norwegian will contain shorthaul within  and to/from the Scandinavian market. Question is what about 787 LH. Norwegian seem to historically have used a small profit margin created from its original and core business of the domestic and Scandinavian plus sun hollidays for same market, to subsidise an expansion into transcontinental including transatlantic flights. Without the latter beeing documented as anything else than a loss making business. Resulting in the whole company using a lot of red ink for its accounts. There is a possibility for LH low fares business but one have to have the discipline for low cost operations that must go with it. The 787 proved a problematic choice for the company and maybe now one of the never narrowbody planes with la larger range would be a better option. Partially because the Scandinavian to sample US market is very small even from the capital cities, and most routes gain by ...

Norwegian have today presented a new plan for how they dream the company can be rescued.  Lets talk about the positives first. They are planning to do a reverse share split by a factor of 100 from over 3 billion to round 30 million. There have been comments that sees shares only worth some norwegian øre (100'th of a Norwegian Krone (nkr)) as signs of a company in distress and leading to a share price easily manipulated = penny stocks. For any hope for the future they need to be able to have shares with an exchange worth of whole nkr's. Theis leads us to the question wether there are enough small investors in Norway, and maybe other Scandinavian countries with enough cash to waste to swallow up a new issue of 4 billion nkr of even more new shares whose value could be lost nearly before they are isued. After all they say straight out that they hope the shareholders will continue to support them for even further future recapitalizations. If there are that many willing to throw eve...

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...

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...

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...

 Is an airline that is living on the cash prepaid for cancelled flights technically in breach of the law. Why is governments letting airline that have depleted their assets to such a degree that debt far outweighs any assets, so in reality a negative balance sheet, continue on running as long as they have cash to pay some of their bills. Not only refusing to refund customers whos flights didn't happen but also handing out worthless pieces of paper and calling them points. Taking even more money from more customers running up even bigger piles of debth. The boards of these airlines must be in jeopardy risking both business quarantines and teoretically time in the slammer. There is no way any accountancy firm is going to sign off on any of their accounts when that time comes. Which may be why some of them are running for the hills. They who pay far in advance for tickets with these outfits are taking a huge risk and in some countries both travel insurance companies and banks have war...

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...

Braathen and his suited team didn't get his 1/5 billion nkr from the Nowegian government but there is about 100 million USD available together with the Norwegian name for a company that is willing to commit taking some new planes from Boeing.  As a manufacturer they care more about how many new airlines the can sell than how many of the older planes get parked. Norwegian never got to an agreement for how much the problems with their new ExMax and Dreamliner planes was goeing to cost the manufacturer because Beoing prefer to pay that sort of money in discounts rather than cash.  A new-Norwegian without most of the commitments and liabilities of the Schram-Norwegian could make a deal and have a fleet partially financed. That would also give them a good base for getting a good deal with the banks so any ticket sales will end up in the airline instead of being kept by the card issuers and banks for security against future refund claims.   

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 ...

Who convinces airlines that the solution for all their problems are a rebrand. Or for any othe rcompany for that matter. Rumours are coming out that Flybe was weeks from a rebrand when they collapsed. A rebrand due to some baggage failure that supposedly had made the airline name toxic ant that could only be fixed with a new name.  Remember a new name is unknown in the market and will not only cost to effectuate but also swallow up massive amounts of cash for marketing to get it known so potential passengers can trust it enough to book with it. And trust is important in the airline sector. We trust after all the Airline to bring us safely from A to B and that is not all ablout that we get value for our bucks but that we actually arrive physically safe.  That kind of trust is not easily built so any rebrand will have to be linked to the old brand name and suddenly the whole purpose of it evaporated. The only winners are the marketers and their often outside brand designer helpe...

  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 ...

There is little new and inovative thinking when Norwegian goes hat in hand to the government and asks for money. Its the traditional story of more loans, more shares, business plan and selling stuff other than seats, which is what an airline should live of. What is needed is a new aproach instead of the same as every other business on the planet. Airlines are different. They sell something even civil servants are interested in performing their work, travel. Not that we expected anything innovative or airline related from the newbie to the aviation world that the CEO of the airline Norwegian in reality is. Norwegian should go the the government and say we need 3 to 4 billion Nkr now for forward ticket sales that the civil servants can use for travel over the coming years. Preferably after normal forward sales volumes have been reestablished. As a caveat it should promise to use some of that to refund outstanding claims from customers that didn't travel due to lockdowns. Who will...

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...

According to frequent reports Ryanair has not managed to fit to CoVid19 their automatic seating algoritm that splits people on the same booking in the hope they will pay extra to sit together. This is a low even for Ryanair. They have in the last years upped their IT department with a factor of 10 and added dozens of programmers to have control over their systems. And still 6 months into a pandemic where every airline knows that only they on the same booking should sit together and everyone else should distance Ryanair management have not yet copped on. In addition at the same time they are seating non related and uknown people together it is reported they are laving some rows completely empty. Theis means they are not even trying to do anything to reduce contamination. It is time for some punishment and maybe the italians for once will be first already threatening a ban on Ryanair if they do not get their act together.

Hear again and again that if you want social distancing = middle seat free, then buy a first class ticket or more than 1 seat. Problem is there are no socially distancing first class on domestic and next to none on airtravel within Europe. And even if you buy the full 3 seats there are no guarantees that the airline won't fill the other 2 if only you shows up for departure. And social distancing should not cost double the price or more. At the most on a normal 3+3 row seat configuration it should be 50% more. It is this kind of naive thinking that is hindering airlines from taking potential passengers fear of CoVid19 seriously. And this fear affect halve of all thinking about flying during the pandemic. The airlines have built up so much capacity hey just can't survive on the 25% of us that don't care and will fly anyway. At the very least airlines should offer proper social distancing, aka middle seat free, as an option. It is time for them to wake up. They have jibbe...

Don't exactly know what degrees Boeing top management have but it don't seem to be psychology, or pr for that sake. They think the most important thing is to get the 737 ExMax past the FAA scrutiny. And for that they are playing the stubborness card. As little change as they can get away with for as cheap as is possible. And that means software only. Reprogramming is cheap but it doesn't really give the press anything to take a picture off. And a picture is worth a thousand words. It is not the FAA that is going to pay to be passengers on the plane. That is the general public and they go by what the press says. And since the press have been touting for many months now that the plane is unsafe and aerodynamically flawed, the potentially flying public is expecting something to be done about it. And noen of them have any real belief in safe software thanks to Microsoft's work during the past 2 decades. They know it is always flawed and full of bugs and need to be rectif...

Ryanair has done it again. Gone and dwcided that their hunt for profit is more important than peoples health and the world economy and taken the Irish government to court on a technicality in their handling of the CoVid19 pandemic emergency. It just show what type of selfcentered individuals runs Ryanair, and BA. They can really be compared with the landlords of old that sent their tenants away on coffin ships so they could exploit the land left behind for profit. Doesn't help that they try to pack it in with concerns about clarity or the freedom of the individual or as humanitarian and sympathetic. These are the same people that will only take pandemic precautions if it doesn't cost their own company anything. Others should provide the masks. Airports should do and pay for the temperature checks. Social distancing is to difficult a.s.o. And pushing the line that no advice is better than  unclear advice is just b****cks. Still waiting for what O'Leary's, and Wilson...

When it comes to utilizing the constantly changing nature of the CoVid19 crisis travel advices from diverce governments, startup airlines have a unique opportunity to take advantage. Where others are large and slow you will be small and flexible. As some pairings close others opens up. People are just booking short time out anyway so you don't have to publish a 6 month schedule. Many airlines take a week or 2 to react to government advisory changes. You should have it ready for booking by tomorrow. In addition most customer charter rules are temporarily suspended or not enforced so a 2 or even 1 week cancelling policy should be envoked. Cancel, refund and move your resources to a different route. As a new airline you are not lumbered with bookings done months ago that you want to fly to avoid refunding because you have spent the cash from them on paying for unused planes and other fixed costs.

It's not a crash / downturn / new normal for a business started now. They don't have a lot of parked planes they have to pay for or staff costs for people that have nothing to do, or now massively oversized other fixed costs for an airline 4 times what they are flying. Their start out cost base will be where other airlines are trying to get to through negotiating pay and lease reductions. And what for established airlines will just be a (partial) future return to normal will for them be a giant upswing. Add in a bit of what others can't do because it isn't like it used to be and you could be on to a winner. Something for CoVid19 times like optional social distancing through middle seat free. Flexible changes instead of outright refunds. Remember they don't have a massive presale either of seats that may or may not be taken up, so they should now that they who book now knows the pandemic story. New airlines now have a massive selection of used and new planes fro...

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....

This time it is an originally military airport Ryanair launched as a Low Fares hub for germans. For Hahn read Frankfurt as Ryanair has advertised it as since they forst started flying to Germany and it was their main foothold in the country. Ryanair is so focused on their crew and airport negotiations that they abandon bases and airports rather frequently. Including markets they have built up over years. Ths may be part of their move up the service ladders and into more established airport that is seen as the city's main place to fly to/from. Regardless of if its closer or further from the city. Advantage for newcomers is that these airports will now be in shock and receptable for any offer probably even low balls like they Ryanair first came with when they moved in all those years ago. After all most of them are pivately owned and open to negotiations. You don't either have to spend your own advertising money on explaining how they really are an airport of whatever ciety,...

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...

Looks like Wizz is fighting Ryanair over the use of the name Buzz for its Ryanair Sun operations claiming Buzz is to similar to Wizz. I doubt this similarity is conincidental but it is really Wzz that is on the backfoot. 2003 was a busy year in the Low Fares business. In the beginning months of that year Ryanair purchased a 4 year old airline called Buzz from its previous owner KLM. In the autumn of that same year Wizz was incorporated. So an ailine with the name Buzz existed long before Wizz started. Doubt that Wizz's name choice was that coincidental and there is proably merit in that they think the names are alike. They probably came up with Wizz exactly because it sounded like the already established airline Buzz. That Ryanair after continuing flying under the name Buzz before they concentrated on the name Ryanair and later rested the name for a few years is not that relevant. They always sat on the rights for the opportune moment. It is simply a case of what goes around...

A single airline could completely dominate a reopened Rygge airport. Think all the slots just for itself with the whole airport designed around its own needs. Including passenger sluicing and offices. All available relatively reasonable since its closed at the moment with no reopening in site without an  anchor airline. It could certainly become a hub and an easy & smooth airport to connect through. We are thinking a transatlantic hub with incoming connections plus feeding and drawing from the Oslo east and Swedish market. Remember Oslo east is seen as the lesser part of Oslo with a lot of suburban somewhat high rise sprawl and even more OBOS. The last is the social way of financing your housing needs where only part of the loan is yours and part is a joint with the other apartment owners. This for they who don't have the financial strength to obtain the full mortgage themselves. Parking could be made much cheaper at Rygge than OSL where prices are on the expensive side and...

Now when we have argued that an airline should be based near an airport to not only remember what its all about but also have some commonality so that management can be closer to the action, and office space can be co-used with operational staff, where would Norwegian with time move to. We have already established that Oslo Fornebu closed years ago as an airport and since all the land is sold off for building offices and housing it is not coming back. This means that Norwegian's current office has become so city center near that its prime real estate, and in the expensive Oslo southwest as well so a quick property developer financed buy and flip makes sense, leaving money over for somewhere else. The most likely new location would be somewhere near the OSL Oslo Airport. That is after all Norwegian's main base, where they retracted to for the pandemic lockdown, and where their headoffice management and staff have to go anyway if they want to travel anywhere within its network...

How to set the pricing strategy for a profitable airline. You start with the costs. It is important to know both the set and variable costs for each leg (city pair) you would potentially fly.  Include everything like cost of plane, crew, maintenance, fuel and taxes. Plus an ad on for other costs like managment, admin and marketing. Hence lowering the costs is alpha and omega for creating a competititive airline that is also profitable. Ceate a pricing strategy fpr eah route that gives you a profit at 80% capacity, or lower if you think you can get away with it in the market. Create several steps in the pricing ladder so you have a low starting price for marketing purposes and the fuller the plane the more you get in. Now you have your base price model. Add on a percentage premium for more poular times of the week, or of the day, and if there are any events scheduled for that market. Add also on a percentage for any premium services you offer, example a 50% add on for middle s...

There are reports that some airlines have been light on aircraft maintenance during the CoVId19 lockdowns. This specially goes for they who have outsourced that maintenance and have done a light touch follow up. Since airfreight is still massively behind some airlines like, EasyJet, have found that parts are hard to come by now when everybody are ramping up their flying and all need the same parts at the same time. The situation isn't helped by that freight and especially airfreight is far behind normal operation. This has led to some airlines having to use their less fuel efficient planes insted of the newer and greener ones. Even if they have extras of the others in stock they just haven't been maintained to the standard required for an immediate return to service. Or even not so immediate since most airlines have had 2 to 3 weeks between announcing its uprated schedule to actually going live with it. It is ironic that planes can't get back in the air because planes ...

Its presentation to the annual general meeting today showed a future where it is planning to be an "enterprise within future mobility". Never mind whether that is planning to be "great", but few shareholders like to ambitious diversifications within an enterprise. Not only does it divert managments attention away from the core, but shareholders think they are the best judges of their investments and if they want to invest in other modes of transport they do that separately. Norwegian managments shorter timeframe plan is to be just a "good organisation within the aviation industry". Good means mediocre in this context. Nobody has an ambition of that. Best in its field and revolutionise is words more used in future plans about ambitions. This lack of airline focus shows also in the new organisational chart. Operations is twice removed from the CEO below not only a large stab and a separate airline chief but also a customer chief. Far from the Low Cost m...

This is what happens when an international airline get a top chief that have no experience from managing an airline. No experience from any other parts than a bit of consulting. Just thinks its about selling a ticket plus whatever extra you can add onto the purchase. You don't make a Low Fares airline by lowering prices. You make the basis for it by keeping your costs low. And a key part of that is the single type of plane. But you need to spend time in engineering and ops to understand why that is so important. Just 1 set of spares and 1 type of engineer for all the planes, just 1 type of pilot so you don't have to double up on simulators and standbys, and the ability to swap any plane in on any route depending on what is available on the day. Did the company bosses visit other airlines that has done before the type of company they wanted to be. O'Leary of Ryanair did do a study visit to Southwest before forming his vision.  If you want to play with the big boys and sou...

No matter how much blm flying to former colonies is still a stable revenue stream and among the most recession and CoVid19 proof among international passenger air-transport business you can do. The first to come back and get was flying between Portugal and its former colonies in South America. It actually hardly stopped. There are still a lot of connection between European states and their former colonies. And the later they where freed the more. It don't seem like resentment is the lingering frame of mind but more a continued sense of responsibility. Look at Britain and its consideration of offering immigration to all of its former colony Hong Kong residents. I mean the UK is keeping many of them in a continued cooperation arrangement even through sporting games. There seem to also be a certain amount of continuing business and trade between such constellations, resulting in non tourist traffic that are allowed also in a time of crisis. A lot of overseas students also travel t...

More of the fictive crew rental straw companies that Norwegian created are being declared bankrupt. Reasons given; client (= Norwegian) won't pay their bills. And this time it is really closing in on them being in their neighbouring countries Denmark and Sweden. This is going to end in tears. The management of Norwegian haven't solved neither the company finances nor its problems. They have just pushed them into the future. No other airline have tried to solve their CoVid19 problems by abandoning their legal responsibilities towards their employees. Whether they where hired directly or through fictive agencies. Fictive = the agency only supply staff to 1 company which is also the owner (or part owner) of said employment agency. Others have tried to abandoned their crew at other times. But those companies always had the financial strength to pay themselves out of trouble when it went legally tits up. Norwegian do not have the money to pay out if different countries start tak...

Looks like some airline systems are not suited to quick adjustments in the necessary flexibility of the schedule. As CoVid19 fears lightens the careful comeback steps of airlines are being overtaken by a surge in customer demands as a result of constant new re-openings of borders. Prices are going up without airlines responding quickly with additional flights. Sample the prices close in for the 1 hour Oslo to Copenhagen route lay above Euro 500.- It used to be in the 120.- range and have been sold as low as35.- Many airlines are used to a long time perspective looking at the forward bookings weeks and months in advance. That is no good in what is more like a suddenly emerging market. When customers in addition are vary about booking long in advance due to sudden and the airlines lack of immediate refunds for previous  flight cancellations, they therefore book only for next week or the week after. Then you need to add flights in that time perspective. It is not a difficult oper...

The first European airline to fail in the very beginning of CoVid19 was Connect Airways or FlyBe as most like to call it. Was that necessary. From a pure financial standpoint it certainly looked that way. Running constant losses and with owners tired of constantly refilling it with money. I say money because it wasn't really cash but more promises of such. As an airline it had some things going fore it. A good AOC for a multiple of types of aircraft that made it a vendor in a market of its own. Large enough but not a direct threat to the likes of easyJet and Ryanair. And for the network airlines it was more a supplier than a competitor. However for many years it had leaders and management that took it in to many directions spending money on costly rebranding and too many different types of aircrafts. Many thinks it would be better as a regional with the smallest of aircrafts but those kind of routes are better left to even smaller niche players. It could have carved out a mar...

Many politicians in charge around the world are showing signs of CoVid19 fatigue. The number of previously daily press conferences are dwindling. Figures for the new infections and deaths are no longer daily. Less happens during the weekend. And the press are following suit. No longer are updates headline or given the most prominent space on the frontpages. But is that enough to un-scare the populations of these countries. Make them believe the immediate danger is really over even though they for months have been touted that this will take years until either a vaccine is implemented or enough of us are immune. Neither of which have happened, anywhere. And still the numbers for infected and new deaths are going up reaching ever higher daily numbers. Even in countries/states whit increasing numbers there seems to be a reluctance against new lockdowns with politicians only heeding positive results, ignoring negative and now following in many cases constructed re-infect rate numbers with...

Constantly newer planes with better engines are not enough when one do both short haul and long haul and can't compete in the investments race. But Norwegian could become the most environmentally green combination airline by lightning the load and stuffing them in. If one think the smallest fuel burn per passenger kilometer lightning the seats are one way. Get writhe of the heavy business class seats and fill the plane with the lightest seats you can find. But something that still don't feel like church pews to sit on. And no business class means no extra heavy crockery or bottles of drink, or double set of trollies. The single class system would also add seats for 12 or more extra passengers in long haul meaning more heads to divide the fuel burn on. If you don't hand out newspapers and magazines you don't need seat pockets either. Away with them and even more weight saved, plus a bit of extra legroom or alternatively maybe even an extra row of seats. You are al...

Last years plan of decorating the edges of the accounts with removing a few new non profitable routes seems like the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. Much more needs doing and I doubt the current management are the ones to do it, except for some financial tinkering. They certainly do not  seem to have the airline experience needed, or from the right airlines, to know what makes a Low Fares carrier a Low Cost. Neither do the new ones added to the management team recently, who have absolutely no airline experience whatsoever. Are they trying to make Norwegian into a shopping mall or think the website rather than actually flying passengers and stuff is what will make the company profitable. There are certainly many steps the airline can do to make it more like the model of the industry Southwest. Where the principle of Low Fares Low Cost was first modelled and who have been profitable in nearly all of the years since, with very little industrial strife to boot. Take the ...

In these CoVid19 times it is even more important to simplify the interior of your planes to create as few touch and other virus transfer points as possible. Norwegian still practices having a cloth piece where you lean your head on rather than just the leather seat. Leather is much easier to clean with disinfectant than cloth that ideally should be removed and washed after each flight, but ain't. They might look nice with the airline name on them but one would think that by the time the passengers find their seats they already know they are flying with Norwegian. The emergency procedures are still on a loose sheet, even if laminated. Sticking these permanently to the seatback in front removes the need of touching it. In all seat pockets is a contamination trap in these pandemic times. Away with them.  And while we are on the theme of seats. Leaning seatbacks. Away with them. They are an extra unnecessary cost and mostly a bone of contention that add very little to the comfort ...

Instead of cancelling Airbus order like Stelios requested easyJet is now deferring the deliveries of the order up to several years into the future. Is this a way of pandering to Stelios wishes without actually being seen to cave in since management did win the shareholder vote on the matter. After all it can't have been pleasant for the management of the airline to have to work against the wishes of a 33% owner. This way they could present it as a bit of a victory emphasizing the retention of the discounts obtained way back in 2013. A bit odd that an even better deal couldn't be obtained this time around but those might be reserved for they who can actually take deliveries of aircrafts now. Good thing also that the delay fit nicely with most airlines forecasts on when the world will return to more normal times. At least that is the timeframe they use when negotiating with staff on t&c conditions. However it is still against Stelios expressed opinion that 200 is the op...

Norwegian have tried to have a service level more like easyJet than Wizz, and that has not really worked out for them. Maybe they can never reach the really ULCC levels being based in a high cost country like Norway. But the loyalty from their core customer base is more based on regional belonging than a steadily eroding included service level through adapting the Ryanair way of everything is an additional extra. They should more try for bettering Ryanair by mimicking the early days of Ryanair when they where an ULCC Ultra Low Cost Carrier. There are definitely an alternative way forward for Norwegian with less frills freeing up many costs and more important removing distractions for the staff and management. Anything other than a single menu offering should sample be avoided. All cabin staff should serve the whole cabin that should be of a single type configuration even on long haul. Let other airlines take the premium segment and simplify the product offered. That would also give e...