COPENHAGEN: Norwegian airline came out of the first quarter of 2015 with a loss of 790 million kroner. A pilots’ strike that cancelled flights and sent passengers to other airlines was a large part of the problem.
“The first quarter is usually seasonally weak, and this quarter the figures were also affected by the weakness of the Norwegian kroner against the dollar and euro,” said Norwegian CEO Bjørn Kjos. “At the same time, the pilots’ strike sent many customers to competitors.” The loss was actually less than then 802 million kroner that some analysts had predicted.
Norwegian’s total revenue of about 3.6 billion kroner was also slightly better than expected. “On the positive side, passenger growth outside Scandinavia has been good, especially on long-haul routes,” said Kjos. “In particular, passenger growth on the London-Gatwick route has been very solid.”
