Stockholm Arlanda Airport

Norwegian improves its 1Q2013 results, but widebody profits may be one for the long-haul

Norwegian Air Shuttle narrowed its net loss in 1Q2013 and turned its operating result around from a loss of NOK574.6 million (USD99 million) to a profit of NOK69.2 million (USD12 million). Capacity continues to grow rapidly, with ASKs up 21% (11% due to longer average sectors), but load factor dipped by 1ppt to 76%.

Nevertheless, RASK grew 2% and revenues were up 23%, while unit costs were down 8%. Further CASK reduction remains a key target and the establishment of new bases outside high wage Scandinavia, both in Europe and in Asia, provides an opportunity to lower labour costs.

Norwegian recently announced a seventh widebody route (Oslo-Fort Lauderdale) for its long-haul network, which will launch on 30-May-2013 along with Oslo-New York. Its strategy of growing long-haul operations through new routes at the expense of frequency will help it to establish a wider presence more rapidly, but will reduce the available cost efficiencies at remote bases and restrict its appeal mainly to the leisure passenger. Norwegian’s long-haul network may struggle to be profitable for some time.

Norwegian Air Shuttle: at a critical turning point

Norwegian Air Shuttle’s 2012 results confirmed its position as the Nordic region’s most consistently profitable airline and the one with the lowest unit costs. This year represents a critical turning point for Norwegian. In 2013, it will establish its first base in a major capital city outside Scandinavia (at London Gatwick) and set up a base in the highly competitive mainland Spanish market. Moreover, it will also launch long-haul routes to New   York and Bangkok. Only time will tell if 2013 proves to be the point where Norwegian turned up or turned down. This may depend on what the future holds for regional competitors SAS and Finnair.

On long-haul, it will encounter efficient competitors from much lower wage economies and well established strongly branded operators from Europe, while on short-haul it will meet embedded lower cost competitors that will not have the distraction of start-up long-haul operations. Looking further ahead, it will need more bases around Europe in order to achieve the double-digit growth rates demanded by its ambitious fleet expansion over the next decade or so. It may also need to consider recapitalising its somewhat slight balance sheet.

SAS aims to capture a larger share of the thriving Scandinavian leisure market

LCCs are a thorn in the eye of all established network carriers, and the environment is no different in Scandinavia where SAS Group’s historic market share has been slowly crumbling off to the benefit predominantly of Norwegian Air Shuttle, which relentlessly has built a closely-knit network from bases in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. As a national airline partially owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway (with a 21.4%, 14.3% and 14.3% shareholding respectively), SAS for too long has been a bystander, hoping that its ownership structure and lobbying would be sufficient to fence off the expansion of Norwegian and other budget airlines.

Now SAS is trying to fight back and it wants to win over the independent leisure travelers who flock to the no-frills operators. As part of its new strategic platform 4Excellence, which was outlined by the company’s new president and CEO Rickard Gustafson in Sep-2011, the airline is expanding its offerings to strengthen its market share within the leisure travel segment.

In Europe, Scandinavian airports are rising to the economic challenge

Major European airports – some privatised, others in the public sector – have released financial results for 1Q2012 and in two cases for FY2011. Unlike the last time an across-the-board results survey was undertaken, in 2011, there is a greater degree of uncertainty in some countries in this first quarter that is reflected in these reports but there still remain more positive than negative results, especially in Scandinavia.

Marketing the emergence of China's sixth-freedom hubs

In a move that will tilt the world's aviation axis, Chinese airlines are making bold efforts to target sixth-freedom traffic from their geographically well-positioned hubs that further benefit from very low cost bases. There are challenges including service, distribution and marketing, but on the latter two, China's airlines are making efforts and not standing still.

Norwegian Air Shuttle reports its strongest quarterly result with bigger target on corporate sector

Norwegian Air Shuttle reported a strong third quarter (three months to 30-Sep-2011) result, bolstered by strong gains in revenue, passenger numbers and careful cost control. The result for the third quarter, seasonally the carrier’s strongest, was Norwegian’s strongest ever quarterly result as the LCC continues to expand at breakneck pace in the Northern Europe region in which it now claims bases in all four major Nordic markets. The carrier is targeting a greater share of the corporate sector but will soon have to defend itself from full-service competitor SAS, who it has taken market share from.

Norwegian, the first European carrier of the third-quarter reporting season reported a stellar result amid a concerning quarter for the continent's airlines, which was characterised by downward revisions to earnings by many major carriers, although LCCs are faring much better.