oliver2002

Remeber the extremes Norwegian went into to save crew costs? Cabin crew bases in BKK and FLL, flight crew based in Ireland, etc. Cutting costs is all fine and dandy, but at one point it gets absurd.

USA_flyer

I'm not convinced air travel will bounce back that quickly. Youre relying on a lot of people to have their income improved from where it is now which, isn't a given. Youre also relying on a rapid roll back of rules designed to prevent covid spread.

Conservatively, I think you're looking into next year before load factors get back to normal and even longer for fares to recover.

GUWonder

Seems like Norwegian may get another round of assistance from the Norwegian government to remain around and have a chance to be a player in the short-haul/mid-haul flying range.

A healthy, highly competitive marketplace -- no less so in a commodity market of sorts -- is not likely without there also being a mix of money-losing losers in the picture too. Any market that is entirely free of having money-losing players that may or will end up insolvent is a market that is not a healthy, highly competitive marketplace.

A healthy, competitive marketplace is more possible and sustainable when there aren't government-backed oligopolies being granted waivers and favors that so extensively facilitate the conversion and elimination of consumer surplus for the benefit of favored suppliers in the marketplace. The money-losing ways of Norwegian are the kind of thing that sort of act as a limited counterweight to the stacking of the playing field in favor of the government-backed behemoths, their carnal buddies and those other suppliers who accept the behemoths' "discipline".

Finni

Norwegian did today send an e-mail saying the Norwegian Reward program will "be paused". No earning, no redeeming of anything.

Concerto

It's really got a whiff of Air Berlin and the Top Bonus program, this has.. Even though TB didn't get put on hold, they were blithely saying you could do this and that with it, before it suddenly got shut down.

iahphx

The elite -- aka "the people who fly" -- have plenty of money to fly. They generally haven't been hit hard financially by Covid. But they have to want to fly. I think that will be the case this year. I do think a bigger problem will be open borders. There's a lot of irrational fear about foreigners coming in and bringing Covid. If you live in Australia and New Zealand, I could understand that fear. But across the Atlantic? It's foolish. There's been plenty of Covid in all these countries and travellers won't make any difference. But as we've seen with the erroneous "variant" scares, fear still dominates our society. It's easy to be fearful of the people from away somehow killing you. So we'll have to see how this plays out. My guess is the desire to travel will win out over the fear, but we'll need low case numbers for that to happen.

GUWonder

A bunch of "the elite" aren't flying using OPM like they used to fly; and many of "the elite" won't be back to flying like they were in 2019 until at least 2022 .... if even then.

Given how the AstraZeneca vaccine seems less effective against at least one major variant, I would say that variant concerns are not an erroneous concern. And given Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are rushing to get geared up for revised vaccines too -- as needed to deal with new variants -- it appears that the experts in the business of making and selling vaccines don't think it's an erroneous business concern either.

And what about the Bank Norwegian-issued CashPoints affiliated cards still in use?

That did come to mind. It's to be seen if Norwegian's program goes the way of AB's program or if it goes the way of what was 9W's program. Jet Airways is long gone as an airline, but its program was rebranded and is still around.

Im a new user

The cards still earn points, but cardholders may choose cashback instead of cashpoints (source). Bank DY has nothing to do with DY. DY is not listed as one of the biggest shareholders of Bank DY. I think that DY sold all of its remaining Bank DY shares a couple of years ago because they needed money. Bank DY is probably treated as one of "our other Reward partners" in the quoted correspondence in post #769.

Since you can't redeem cashpoints for the moment, cashback sounds safer than cashpoints.

Concerto

I said at the beginning of this crisis, and I stand by it now, that the only thing more infectious than Corona is stupidity. And we have seen a LOT of the latter during the last year, in many different forms.

Enilria

The founder of Norwegian said today he plans to start a new Norwegian long-haul 787 airline possibly as early as December.

CPH-Flyer

I guess someone has got some cash they are desperate to loose....

https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/norw...line-to-start/

warakorn

Well, if the lessors are playing along, this could be possible.
However, who in his right mind will lend a new "Norwegian" any money?

CPH-Flyer

For the lessors, getting some money is better than getting no money. And getting the planes from parked without a contract to placed with an airline means the lessor does not have to pay for the costs of having the planes parked either. I'd go along if there was a reasonable chance of getting the lease payments for 12 to 18 months.

oliver2002

My guess is that the lessors want to write off their old investments and start aftesh. Then they can repackage the debt in a new product that can be sold to their investors. In todays financial world all you need is a new label on old debt. Whether the companyis a going concern is rather secondary

Concerto

I saw this and couldn't believe it. Is it April already?
There's nothing that will stop them, eh?
But to be honest, if things get going as hoped and life comes back to normal, it will be good to have something offering competition on the North Atlantic routes. Otherwise TATL tickets could get a lot dearer in the near future.