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NORWEGIAN

‘I apologize,’ Kjos tells stranded flyers

Bjørn Kjos, the founder of Norwegian Airlines, has apologised to customers delayed or stranded by problems with its two Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft.

'I apologize,' Kjos tells stranded flyers
Bjørn Kjos - Heike Junge - Scanpix
"I apologize to the utmost," he told VG in an interview. "It's terrible that they have experienced it. I also hope that they will fly with Norwegian next time too." 
 
Boeing flew Ray Conner, the chief executive of its commercial airplanes unit, to Oslo on Wednesday for emergency talks, after the Norwegian company's two new Dreamliners suffered a string of damaging delays due to technical problems. 
 
"It was a positive discussion," Kjos said. "They agreed to put up spare part stocks at designations we fly to and they'll send a dedicated team of experts to Norwegian so if there's a problem popping up, they can immediately solve it." 
 
He said that Boeing had received "a lesson" as a result of the crisis. 
 
"I think that Boeing has underestimated the work involved in keeping the aircraft in operation and ensuring that errors are corrected in the shortest possible time," he said. 
 
The American company had promised, he said, that it would have Norwegian's two planes in a condition to fly safely from Thursday, although Kjos said he would wait and see if they could achieve this. 
 
"I hope that Boeing's right. It actually already flown a lot of parts around to avoid all these stupid delays. There wouldn't have been any delays if we had had spare parts available." 
 

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AIRLINE

Airline Norwegian posts 15 billion kroner loss after nightmare 2020

Low cost airline Norwegian has registered a loss of 14.9 billion Norwegian kroner for 2020, a year in which the company saw a drastic reduction in passenger numbers and was on the brink of bankruptcy.

A file photo of a Norwegian Air Shuttle plane in Finland.
A file photo of a Norwegian Air Shuttle plane in Finland. Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva / AFP

Low cost airline Norwegian has registered a loss of 14.9 billion Norwegian kroner for 2020, a year in which the company saw a drastic reduction in passenger numbers and was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The company published its annual results on Friday, revealing the huge operating loss.

Norwegian’s 2019 result, a loss of around 1.7 billion kroner, had put the company in a difficult position even prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus outbreak and its consequent travel restrictions reduced the company’s passenger numbers to 6.9 million in 2020. That is 29 million fewer than in 2019.

Not all of the loss is due to fewer passengers. Around half of the company’s devaluation is attributed to a depreciation of the value of its aircraft fleet, news wire Ritzau reports.

“2020 was an exceptionally demanding year for air travel and for Norwegian,” CEO Jacob Schram said in a statement on the annual results.

“In light of that, the result for the fourth quarter (of 2020) is not surprising. Unfortunately, the majority of our employees are furloughed and many have lost their jobs – in part because of the closure of long distance services,” he added.

The company was already in debt prior to the pandemic and is now under bankruptcy protection in Ireland and is undergoing similar process in Norway.

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