Norwegian Air to cut one-seventh of its flights in 2020

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Norwegian Airline sees another year of losses and has blamed the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max after two fatal crashes. There were issues with Rolls Royce engine fitted to its Boeing 878 aircraft.

At Gatwick, Norwegian has a large base and is the third-largest airline behind easyJet and British Airways.

Last year, Norwegian incurred a loss of NOK 1.61bn and carried 36 million passengers with a loss of £3.70. In its most recent full financial year, easyJet made a profit of £4.50 per passenger.

The airline mentioned that year on year, unit revenue increased in nine consecutive months which was driven by the maturing routes and optimization of Norwegian’s global route network.

In September 2020 it is expected to return them to service and the airline has 18 Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

To cover for the narrow-bodied 737 and for the long haul 787s it has been chartering in additional planes to cover  as they were grounded due to engine maintenance issues.

The amount of compensation is still not clear that Norwegian has received from Boeing or Rolls-Royce.

In July 2019, Bjorn Kjos, founder and chief executive of Norwegian had stepped down and IAG-the parent company of British Airways withdrew a 1 billion bid for Norwegian which was regarded as undervaluing the airline.

Geir Karlsen, the chief financial officer said that in 2019a new flight path for Norwegian  was marked as the company changed its strategic focus from growth to profitability. In 2020 they will turn the challenges into opportunities.

It is expected that the airline will cut about one-seventh of its flights in 2020 , which routes will be affected is still not known.

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