Norwegian Set to Lease Additional Aircraft After Promising January Performance

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, known simply as ‘Norwegian,’ a Norwegian low-cost airline that operates both domestically and internationally, began 2023 with a strong sales campaign, carrying around 1.1 million (1,131,474) passengers and also recording an increase in load factor. January is generally the month of the year when people travel the least, but compared to January 2022 there was a 78% increase in load factor. People typically use this time of year to book their next trips during the school holiday period and long weekends, but this month saw almost a full load of flights to the ‘hottest’ destinations by the Norwegian airline.

Capacity (ASK) was 1.870 million seat kilometers, while actual passenger traffic (RPK) was 1.453 million seat kilometers. In January, Norwegian operated an average of 62 aircraft and 99.5% of scheduled flights were completed. Punctuality, as measured by the number of flights departing within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, was 85.0% in January.

The low-cost airline also observed a positive booking trend after the January period. This year’s summer program includes 300 routes to 114 destinations, including some new ones. With an expanded route network and new aircraft, Norwegian continues to recruit new colleagues.

Last week the Norwegian aviation sector was marked by the bankruptcy of Flyr, a low-cost airline based at Oslo-Gardermoen Airport, like Norwegian itself.

Norwegian’s CEO, Geir Karlsen, said he was very supportive of the employees, customers and others affected by Flyr’s bankruptcy, inviting employees to apply for jobs at Norwegian.

Norwegian, as a result of the very positive result in January, decided to lease six Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. On Monday, it signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Air Lease Corporation (ALC) for the lease of six Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which are in addition to the three 737 MAX 8s that Norwegian had previously agreed to lease from ALC and one of which has already been delivered to Norwegian.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 is approximately 14% more fuel efficient than the previous generation aircraft, contributing to Norwegian’s ambitious goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 45% by 2030. The aircraft will be delivered to Norwegian in short order, ahead of the 2023 summer season.

Norwegian had already reached an agreement on May 30, 2022 to commit to the purchase of 50 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The agreement also included options for a further 30 aircraft.

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA reached an agreement in principle with Boeing for a new commitment to purchase 50 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The 50 aircraft were to be delivered between 2025 and 2028.

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Vincenzo Claudio Piscopo

Vincenzo graduated in 2019 in Mechanical Engineering with an aeronautical curriculum, focusing his thesis on Human Factors in aircraft maintenance. In 2022 he pursued his master's degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Palermo, Italy. He combines his journalistic activities with his work as a Reliability Engineer at Zetalab.

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