Norse Atlantic pushing ahead with plans to sell ‘a material stake’ in the airline

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• Tony says:

  31 Jan31 January 05:29

  Is this suggesting that Norse is very sick at the moment?! Another one-day wonder?

• Peter says:

  31 Jan31 January 06:36

  I remember the old Radisson Rewards promotions very fondly. As recently as early 2019, I earned 50.000 extra points for staying 10 nights within 3 months, and redeemed them at 0.55ppp. Maybe that wasn’t sustainable, but the big difference in my eyes to the old programme is the scrapping of these generous promotions. With them, even now, this could actually be quite an OK programme!

• John says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:30

  I am having a hard time figuring out which European airlines would want to and have the cash to buy into Norse.
  For the major one the only one that makes sense is IAG to take out another London based airline. They did almost buy the old even worse run Norwegian pre covid.
  I can’t think of any medium sized airlines with cash or market position. LOT should care, Finnair doesn’t have the cash, SAS is being purchased themselves, Air Baltic doesn’t have the cash and is too small, non of the LCC’s should be interested and anyone in South Europe is too far to make the network work. The only possibility would be the new Norwegian buying an arm length stack as they are often sold as a connection.

  • John says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:31

    LOT shouldn’t care (typing error) as Norse doesn’t opearate in that part of the world and LOT can run their own planes cheap enough.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:53

    Why would IAG buy Norse to take it out of UK ops when Norse itself is doing such a good job of doing that on its own ?

    As well at that cost there would be the cost of refitting the ex Norse planes with which ever of the IAG airlines it allocates the planes to seats / paint etc

    They don’t need the slots either – having leased some of their own to other airlines

    And then there are the competion issues

    • Stu_N says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:35

      They are leasing the slots because they don’t have the aircraft to fly them.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        31 Jan31 January 12:44

        They have been leasing out slots for years.

        Even pre Covid when they were running a much larger operation on both long and short haul

• roberto says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:46

  Easyjet or Ryanair? Are they ready for the step up to long haul?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:59

    Well they keep saying they want to but never do

    Cheaper to generate headlines saying you’re going to do it than actually do it!

    It would be easier for Ryanair to absorb the 787s as they are already heavily invested in Boeing planes whereas Easy only has Airbus.

    • Dev says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:29

      Ryanair 737 Max pilots can also be dual type rated for the 787s as well. Exactly how TUI operate but I doubt Ryanair would want to hit long-haul. You need more fuel and also some cargo to make it work, and get enough numpties to pay the ancillary fees. Its much cheaper to do that in a short-haul aircraft flying multiple times between European cities. is it better to have 1 passenger paying £300 for 1 flight that takes 8/9 hrs or 5 or 6 passengers each paying £150 over 5 or 6 flights within that same 8/9 hr period.

      • David says:

        31 Jan31 January 10:48

        I wonder if theres any legality in place for such a scenario as a 11 hour flight from UK to BKK on a Ryanair seat? Or as long toilet works then duration doesn’t matter?

        • JAXBA says:

          31 Jan31 January 18:50

          Seat comfort/duration isn’t legislated, it’s seat safety; can it withstand the G forces of a crash? Can the aircraft be evacuated in x minutes with half the exits blocked, with elderly and children, even if the pitch is minimal? Legal, so don’t forget to wear compression socks and do some stretches or book a different product…

• Freddy says:

  31 Jan31 January 08:16

  Like Rob sticking in the boot at radisson, well deserved really

  • JD says:

    2 Feb2 February 11:38

    Totally agree. Radisson used to have a great points program. Spent many a great weekend on them. I hardly bother with them now.

• TooPoorToBeHere says:

  31 Jan31 January 08:25

  Lots of businesses have Made It in low-cost short-haul.

  Low-cost transatlantic is a graveyard. Maybe the 321XLR will change that.

  However, if pax will tolerate very long narrowbody flights, it wouldn’t stun me to see everyone including the incumbents switch to the lower-cost aircraft leaving the basic issues of the long-haul low-cost model (no supporting feeder network, high costs and lack of flexibility for irrops, lack of flexibility for seasonal traffic) unaddressed.

  • Bernard says:

    31 Jan31 January 08:56

    Passengers do ‘tolerate’ or even enjoy or don’t care about long haul narrow body flights.
    Rather than a misplaced assumption look at the facts and data.
    Long haul narrowbody 757 flights have been going for over 30 years – from leisure flight to Orlando etc from the uk, air Nepal from Gatwick (then), or plethora continental (now united) 757 routes to Europe.
    Stockholm to Newark still runs in summer and it s almost 9 hours.
    Meanwhile Aer lingus, TAP, SAS, jet blue have no issues running A321s long haul.
    So please can we (you?) end this fallacy that the average punter cares. There’s 40 years of evidence they don’t Price and convenience matter far more.

    And it’s probably an aberration that for 20 years 1970-1990 long haul was only widenody.
    So please drop this post truth myth!

    • CamFlyer says:

      31 Jan31 January 10:07

      Exactly. Everything else being equal in economy I’ll choose a wide body over narrowbody for long haul, but that comes after price and convenience. If the airline uses a proper long haul product in business I would be indifferent, even if not the latest amd greatest suite, etc). I avoided transatlantic narrowbody flights hub to hub, but there are lots of hub to secondary or secondary to secondary routes that are uneconomic above a certain number of seats and where a monstop is far preferable to a connection. Think about US/Canadato German cities other than FRA and MUC (DUS or HAM?), MUC to more of the US, anywhere in the UK outside of London to somewhere other than NY, etc.

      Much of the distaste arose in the 1990s and 2000s when some of the US airlines ran domestically configured 757s (with domestic F seats up front, rather than long haul business) on transatlantic flights.

    • Relaxo says:

      31 Jan31 January 10:26

      I’ve had the “privilege” of doing Aer Lingus narrowbody single aisle cattle class to Toronto. It was a nightmare, even the staff were losing it ….

    • callum says:

      31 Jan31 January 11:05

      A lot of people on here (and every other travel website) don’t appreciate that the average person doesn’t even know what a “narrowbody” is, let alone choose their airline based on aircraft type.

• Matarredonda says:

  31 Jan31 January 08:58

  Anybody on here flown with Norse?
  Personally can’t see EJ or Ryanair being interested.
  Norse always claim the 787’s it operates are on pay by the hour so cheap butaybe that was for a limited period now ending as otherwise they could sub lease at a decent profit.
  Can’t see this ending well for Norse.

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 12:53

    PE is, space wise, the best in the business. The downsides are poor frequencies (on US routes, vs BA/Virgin, often odd flight times and silly fees for luggage, food and seating).

    Bottom line is BA could give its economy seats away for free transatlantic because it has the F and Club revenue. How does Norse compete against those economics, however low their cost base?

    • jj says:

      31 Jan31 January 13:21

      Not really true about BA and economy revenue, even though it’s often said. Simplistically, if the average return selling price in each class is £3K, £2K, £1K and £0.5K, 30% of total revenue comes from Economy for a fully loaded 787-9. Revenue per sq ft of the aircraft is actually quite similar for each class.

      • Rob says:

        31 Jan31 January 13:30

        That wasn’t the point. The point was that the final 30% isn’t needed to break even and so BA could do what it wanted here in order to squeeze out Norse.

• Bernard says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:02

  The crux here is Norse was approached, not that it looked to sell itself, which the article slightly spins.
  Norse has some exceedingly cheap and flexible 787-9 leases from lessors (BOC maybe), that provided there is no change of control clause could prove extremely attractive. The issue here is that the acquiror would need to buy all of Norse to get those not just a bit.

  As an additional fact check, perhaps suggesting Norse is opportunistic fails to understand business. Any business will allocate resources where there is the best opportunity. And if that’s not in post hrexit depressed uk but elsewhere, isn’t that sensible business?

  • Richie says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:12

    It seems Norwegian/ Norse long haul didn’t get their business plan right from day one, which is very poor for a start-up.

    • Justin says:

      31 Jan31 January 12:34

      Seriously Richie? As if it was so easy to get a business plan right for an innovating airline. This is not selling pastries at a weekend market.

      • David says:

        31 Jan31 January 14:11

        Aside from Mr Branson “how to be a millionaire?” Its not easy. Global Airlines are still heard of occasionally, if they fly this century it’ll be a miracle.

      • Richie says:

        31 Jan31 January 16:00

        Norwegian had serious delays/ cancellations with some flights from the US to Gatwick which hit the headlines, bad news which a start up should’ve avoided through appropriate risk management.

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 12:51

    You can see it both ways. The way they are bouncing aircraft around from season to season feels more ‘opportunistic’. There is no attempt to give a route 2-3 years to bed in, which is what you need if you want to educate the travel trade.

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