Skip to content

Press release -

April traffic figures: Norwegian strongly affected by closed European airspace in April

Norwegian’s passenger figures were strongly affected by the unexpected closing of European airspace in April due to volcanic ash. Close to 2 000 flights were cancelled.  A total of 800 000 passengers flew with Norwegian. The company had a production growth of 13 percent compared to April last year.

 

“April has been a challenging month for Norwegian because of the authorities’ closing of European airspace, but we are satisfied with the April figures taking the severe disruption into consideration.

 

Our passengers have suffered, and Norwegian have lost at least NOK 100 million. We have done everything in our power to safely transport our stranded passengers home, and we commenced flight operations as soon as we were given clearance by the authorities. We are pleased that traffic is now back to normal, and we are very satisfied with a 91 percent on-time performance, particularly given the major disruptions we have been subjected to,” said Bjørn Kjos, Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian.

 

The yield is estimated at 0.51 NOK for April, down 19 percent compared to the same month in 2009. The development partially reflects a significantly adjusted route portfolio and the introduction of five new Boeing 737-800 aircraft with higher capacity and lower unit cost. The yield is also negatively affected by the closing of European airspace.

The airline’s load factor was 71 percent, 8 percent lower than April 2009. The reduction is partially caused by slow recovery of passenger traffic during the first week of resumed operations.

Norwegian operated 79.9 percent of its scheduled flights in April, of which 91.1 percent departed on time. The underlying regularity adjusted for the disruptions due to the closure of European airspace was 96.6 percent.

Please find more financial figures in the attached PDF.

 

 

Contacts:

SVP, Corporate Communications, Anne-Sissel Skånvik, phone +47 48 99 44 40

CFO, Frode Foss, phone +47 91 63 16 45.

Subjects


Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, commercially branded “Norwegian,” is a public low-cost airline noted on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company is the second largest airline in Scandinavia, and has a route portfolio that stretches across Europe into North Africa and the Middle East. With competitive prices and customer friendly solutions and service, the company has experienced significant growth over the previous years. With more than 10.7 million passengers in 2009, Norwegian is the 4th largest low-cost airline in Europe. The turnover in 2009 was in excess of NOK 7.3 billion. Norwegian currently operates 52 aircraft on 230 routes to 91 destinations and employes approximately 2 000 people.

Contacts

Press Office details

Press Office details

Press contact
Marketing/sponsorhip requests: marketing@norwegian.com

Marketing/sponsorhip requests: marketing@norwegian.com

Press contact Marketing/sponsorship requests: marketing@norwegian.com

Related content

Norwegian.com

Norwegian is the largest Norwegian airline and one of Europe’s leading low-cost carriers. The company has around 4,500 employees and offers a comprehensive route network between Nordic countries and destinations in Europe. Since 2002, more than 300 million passengers have flown with Norwegian. The most important task has been to offer affordable plane tickets to all and to offer more freedom of choice along the journey.

Norwegian is a driving force for sustainable solutions and the transformation of the aviation industry. The company’s goal is to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45 percent within 2030. To this means, the company is renewing its fleet, promoting sustainable aviation fuel, reducing its waste, and using wind and weather data to calculate the most efficient fuel-saving flights routes. Norwegian wants to become the sustainable choice for its passengers.