Norwegian short-haul airline Flyr files for bankruptcy – Gatwick route will not launch

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• Lady London says:

  1 Feb1 February 10:46

  Kind of throws up the flakiness of how airlines have been operating. Seems they’ve been using the money people pay them today, paying for tickets with dates to be flown far into the future, immediately, spending it out right away to fund current flying. In other words, flying they took money for months ago from other people (but they already spent that money from other people. So your money today is gone long before your flight date.

  Now where have I heard something similar? Oh, wait… it’s how the UK government has been handling its promises of state pensions.

  Does anyone think it would be a good idea for credit cards to universally adopt a “low- or no-release of funds paid by cardholders till after the flight? or is that simply not practical?

  • jjoohhnn says:

    1 Feb1 February 10:55

    If they have done any fuel hedging than they may well have paid for your fuel before you have even bought the ticket too. The costs involved with your flight aren’t just on the day you fly.

  • RussellH says:

    1 Feb1 February 12:18

    > Does anyone think it would be a good idea for credit cards to universally
    > adopt a “low- or no-release of funds paid by cardholders till after the flight?

    Not really. I would much rather see an insurance based scheme. Something like this https://www.ipplondon.co.uk/, but that the airline had to have in place to get its operating licence.
    The likes of BA and Lufthansa hate this idea, though, since they see it as subsidising the flaky start up airlines, even though they would pay a much smaller premium per passenger that a new start up.

  • JDB says:

    1 Feb1 February 12:35

    Yes, credit card systems can and do hold back releasing funds to merchants if they perceive risk (as Rob mentions above re Virgin). The imposition of such holdbacks or increase of them is often the final straw for teetering companies.

    Re UK state pensions, lots of countries operate a pay as you go system. While our state pension sometimes looks low, it actually has quite a few positives and you still have to work far fewer years to earn it – eg 40 years in Ireland, 50 years in Netherlands and France trying to raise to 43 vs current 42 vs our 35 years. Auto-enrolment has also made a dramatic difference, doubling the number of people in the private sector with personal pension provision to over 90% and we have incredibly generous pension tax breaks.

  • Miguel says:

    2 Feb2 February 10:40

    Also why are Norwegian Airlines being called short hall,I flew to Argentina with them and they still owe me for my broken suit case,flight back was delayed with a technical issue on the plane and about 200 of us had to sleep on airport floor first night,disgraceful arliine

    • Rob says:

      2 Feb2 February 10:41

      Because Norwegian is a purely short haul airline now. It doesn’t even have any long haul aircraft left.

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