According to Airlineroute, Norwegian is cancelling 4 routes out of DUS (Germany's 3rd busiest airport) this winter:

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... f-06sep19/

D8-operating service discontinued (or not returning) on/after 27OCT19:
Alicante – Dusseldorf
Gran Canaria/Las Palmas – Dusseldorf
Malaga – Dusseldorf
Palma Mallorca – Dusseldorf
Tenerife South – Dusseldorf

Which means Norwegian is leaving DUS and the NRW market (Germany's most populated area), as they don't fly to CGN either. Norwegian's presence in Germany will be really small and limited to about a dozen routes out of MUC, HAM and SXF.

Not a smart move imho
Norwegian is really struggling...

FatCat wrote:

Not a smart move imho
Norwegian is really struggling...

I suspect Lauda (Ryanair) was the nail in the coffin for Norwegian at DUS. Unsurprisingly Lauda flies from DUS to all those 5 destinations. But I find more surprising Norwegian does not even compete with SAS (sole carrier) in routes like OSL-DUS.

SCQ83 wrote:

According to Airlineroute, Norwegian is cancelling 4 routes out of DUS (Germany's 3rd busiest airport) this winter:

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... f-06sep19/

D8-operating service discontinued (or not returning) on/after 27OCT19:
Alicante – Dusseldorf
Gran Canaria/Las Palmas – Dusseldorf
Malaga – Dusseldorf
Palma Mallorca – Dusseldorf
Tenerife South – Dusseldorf

Which means Norwegian is leaving DUS and the NRW market (Germany's most populated area), as they don't fly to CGN either. Norwegian's presence in Germany will be really small and limited to about a dozen routes out of MUC, HAM and SXF.

While I agree that it would seem DUS is a good market post-AB I don't think cutting 4 routes is that big of a deal compared to cutting DUB-USA. How often were the served?

Leisure airlines are bleeding red ink all over Germany at the moment. Norwegian is the weakest and has taken the right decision.

If they were in a stronger position, CGN would be a perfect Long haul <-> short haul hub for Norwegian, as it has a huge wealthy, catchment, 24hr operations, slot free and with easy access by road and rail.

The next WOW Air.

BestWestern wrote:

Leisure airlines are bleeding red ink all over Germany at the moment. Norwegian is the weakest and has taken the right decision.

If they were in a stronger position, CGN would be a perfect Long haul <-> short haul hub for Norwegian, as it has a huge wealthy, catchment, 24hr operations, slot free and with easy access by road and rail.

Too much capacity and decreasing demand with the German economy cooling down. Ryanair/Lauda is extremely aggressive trying to kick everybody out. This summer it was not uncommon to see BER/CGN/DUS-PMI flights for 10 EUR pretty much any day in July/August. Which meant you could see Eurowings selling those same city pairs for 29.99 or something like that. Something completely unthinkable 4 years ago when Air Berlin was around.

Norwegian, before the max issue, had an excess of fleet - now with cancelling dozens of routes and binning medium haul Max flying, they have way too many aircraft.

FatCat wrote:

Not a smart move imho
Norwegian is really struggling...

They are struggling indeed, but in doing so this could be a smart move for them.

Dusseldorf is an important Eurowings base, their direct competitor on long haul low cost. Also on short haul there's way too much competition. Norwegian has nothing to gain in the Dusseldorf market, they're better off using their capacity elsewhere.

All of the routes that are being cut are non-hub to non-hub, relying on O/D traffic only. And certainly in the off-season, that often leads to low load factors and low yields. They need their routes to touch their hubs in order to provide feed to their network, these flights don't do that. So it's a good thing they're being cut.

I keep wondering if Norwegian would have been more successful if they focused on a hub operation once they transitioned to long-haul flying. Having hubs in OSL, CPH & LGW with short-haul feeding transatlantic flights. But anyhow, like a poster said before this could be a smart move, both Germany and Austria are struggling markets with overcapacity thanks to Ryanair/Lauda, Eurowings and easyJet competition.
But I do have the feeling that once the MAX is back in the air (whenever that happens) Norwegian might find itself with too many aircraft in its fleet.

This is the long road down.

Seen this too many times before from shaky companies.

Their business plan was unworkable and burning the deck chairs will not save the ship...just provides distraction

Wow Air
Air Berlin
Indy Air

Somebody will pull funding at some point and it will be over sadly

jfklganyc wrote:

This is the long road down.

Seen this too many times before from shaky companies.

Their business plan was unworkable and burning the deck chairs will not save the ship...just provides distraction

Wow Air
Air Berlin
Indy Air

Somebody will pull funding at some point and it will be over sadly

Indy Air?......Who are they or what airline are you referring to?

You could have added Monarch to your very short list of recently defunct airline's.

independence air

ACA reinvented themselves at IAD

SIVB wrote:

I keep wondering if Norwegian would have been more successful if they focused on a hub operation once they transitioned to long-haul flying. Having hubs in OSL, CPH & LGW with short-haul feeding transatlantic flights.

Agreed. The traditional LCC have focused on O&D only, which is fairly understandable given their short hail nature of their networks, and yes is less cumbersome to administer and keeps costs and thus fares down. However, Norwegian with its long haul and short haul arms is an interesting new mix to the market. With its excess capacity across its fleet and some decent concentration of slots at the above said hubs the question on strategy has to be asked-does it want to be battling the cut throat O&D european short haul market or would it prefer to be battling airlines like SAS and BA nicking Y traffic at the back on its long haul? I think it comes down to the wider issue of network strategy at DY, yes you can in theory connect at OSL, LGW, CPH, but the connections are all over the place. A better schedule at said hubs could maybe help drive up load factors and yield.

In fairness, as mentioned on the feed, the above cancelled routes are typical O&D which they are just battling the usual parties and fighting each other to the death and offer nothing more. It could be seen as a sensible move if they move the planes to a hub where they can drive some better yield, but this being DY you just don't know what they will do with them.

Cointrin330 wrote:

The next WOW Air.

This will pale in comparison to WOW. Just imagine for a minute, all the stranded Norwegian passengers stuck trying to get back home in the event Norwegian goes under. Ouch to the 1,000,000 degree.

Wasn't Norwegian going to close some of the bases in the Canaries anyway? As for ALC, PMI, AGP - they must be struggling to compete with Eurowings who probably have a better brand image and are better known in Dusseldorf given their large hub there.

Cointrin330 wrote:

The next WOW Air.

They may end up going bankrupt but they'll find a buyer, which WOW was not able to do. Norwegian's huge fleet of modern 737 and 787 as well as its valuable landing slots will be attractive to many large airlines. They'll be willing to sell at a lower price if they're bankrupt... remember IAG and LH Group's interest in Norwegian...?

jghealey wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

The next WOW Air.

They may end up going bankrupt but they'll find a buyer, which WOW was not able to do. Norwegian's huge fleet of modern 737 and 787 as well as its valuable landing slots will be attractive to many large airlines. They'll be willing to sell at a lower price if they're bankrupt... remember IAG and LH Group's interest in Norwegian...?

Norwegian will become Vueling's Long Haul carrier, based at BCN. Into the arms of IAG they will go.

jghealey wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

The next WOW Air.

They may end up going bankrupt but they'll find a buyer, which WOW was not able to do. Norwegian's huge fleet of modern 737 and 787 as well as its valuable landing slots will be attractive to many large airlines. They'll be willing to sell at a lower price if they're bankrupt... remember IAG and LH Group's interest in Norwegian...?

I highly doubt they will go bankrupt. Just wait for the Q3 results. Also, the shares rose about 4% over the news that the bond holders accepted Norwegians request to spread the payments this year.

And they are well on track to turning the company around from loss making to profit making through their FOCUS2019 program.

Cointrin330 wrote:

Norwegian will become Vueling's Long Haul carrier, based at BCN. Into the arms of IAG they will go.

I don't think so.

IAG has had a share in Norwegian in the past, they couldn't wait to get rid of it. As soon as they saw the books, they lost their interest in Norwegian. Far too much debt and not enough profit. Besides, Vueling already has a long haul LCC. It's called Level.

Sure somebody will take over Norwegian, however they'll wait until the very last moment. The moment when Norwegian is worth the least and the urge to sell is the highest. That moment hasn't come yet.

Who will buy Norwegian? There are several possibilities. It could be the Lufthansa Group, letting Norwegian merge with EuroWings. It could be Air France-KLM, merging it with Transavia and creating a long haul division for Transavia in the process. It could be EasyJet, who's always looking for acquiring an airline for cheap. It could be Ryanair, integrating the short haul division into their own network and abolishing the long haul division.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

Norwegian will become Vueling's Long Haul carrier, based at BCN. Into the arms of IAG they will go.

I don't think so.

IAG has had a share in Norwegian in the past, they couldn't wait to get rid of it. As soon as they saw the books, they lost their interest in Norwegian. Far too much debt and not enough profit. Besides, Vueling already has a long haul LCC. It's called Level.

Sure somebody will take over Norwegian, however they'll wait until the very last moment. The moment when Norwegian is worth the least and the urge to sell is the highest. That moment hasn't come yet.

Who will buy Norwegian? There are several possibilities. It could be the Lufthansa Group, letting Norwegian merge with EuroWings. It could be Air France-KLM, merging it with Transavia and creating a long haul division for Transavia in the process. It could be EasyJet, who's always looking for acquiring an airline for cheap. It could be Ryanair, integrating the short haul division into their own network and abolishing the long haul division.

IAG bought the share in Norwegian because they wanted to take them over. They only sold the share since Norwegian was unwilling to sell to them at a price IAG agreed with. They didn't buy the share to make a profit, only to use it as leeway to fully take over Norwegian.

I don't think it's likely they'll go bankrupt (and as others have said, their turnaround project is well under way) but if they were I'd say IAG is the most likely candidate - not least because they have already expressed serious interest in it, but it doesn't have a particularly large low cost operation currently outside of Spain meaning relatively easy clearance from the EU competition regulator, and IAG already operates 787s and will be operating 737max by 2023. LH Group is second most likely but LH is currently all Airbus for shorthaul and mostly Airbus for longhaul with no 787s as of yet. Similarly, the Norwegian network is not at all interlined to the Eurowings network.

They are up to their eyeballs in debt, selling off assets and defaulting on bonds.

Unless Q3 is stellar, which it won’t be, they don’t have enough cash to see them through to Spring, assuming Q4 and Q1 are as bad as last year, which they will be.

On top of this they have 100 aircraft on order with nowhere to fly them profitably.

Not to mention the Max groundings and uncertainty of the RR situation with the 787s.

Quite who was buying shares last week I do not know, I suspect it was a pump and dump.

If this airline is still here after Christmas I will be amazed.

The only thing worth keeping for any prospective airline when it comes to Norwegian is the aircraft. Why buy them out and take on all the debt when you can let them die and buy the aircraft outright?

Let the company die, enjoy higher fares when that capacity leaves the market, and pick up some jets to take on that market.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

The only thing worth keeping for any prospective airline when it comes to Norwegian is the aircraft. Why buy them out and take on all the debt when you can let them die and buy the aircraft outright?

Let the company die, enjoy higher fares when that capacity leaves the market, and pick up some jets to take on that market.

And slots, but that's about it.

Michael

People keep on mentioning slots but how valuable are they really?

AndrewJM70 wrote:

They are up to their eyeballs in debt, selling off assets and defaulting on bonds.

Unless Q3 is stellar, which it won’t be, they don’t have enough cash to see them through to Spring, assuming Q4 and Q1 are as bad as last year, which they will be.

On top of this they have 100 aircraft on order with nowhere to fly them profitably.

Not to mention the Max groundings and uncertainty of the RR situation with the 787s.

Quite who was buying shares last week I do not know, I suspect it was a pump and dump.

If this airline is still here after Christmas I will be amazed.

That has been said many times before, so far it didn't come true. I recall the same being said last year, and the year before, and before that, and so on.

They do have a lot of aircraft on order indeed, but most of them aren't for expansion. They're just a replacement for their old aircraft, which will leave the fleet as the new ones come in. Another option for Norwegian is to sell those brand new aircraft, which will bring in money.

They do have a lot of debt indeed, but they are reforming. What they're currently doing is making that debt sustainable over a longer period of time so it's not an immediate threat to them anymore. In the previous years Norwegian seemed not to care about debt, they kept expanding and in doing so they kept adding more debt. However that's over! The debt has reached it's maximum and the expansion has stopped. Only they still have aircraft on order from before the reform, but they'll find a way with them. Like I said, either they're for replacing old aircraft or they sell them off.

They can’t sell leased aircraft and anything they own is offset by debt. The borrowing costs will skyrocket now they have defaulted so their only option is to issue more shares. Their cash position will see them through one quarter if that, and short of a miracle they will run out around the end of the year. That is the reality when you cut through the spin.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

FatCat wrote:

Not a smart move imho
Norwegian is really struggling...

They are struggling indeed, but in doing so this could be a smart move for them.

Dusseldorf is an important Eurowings base, their direct competitor on long haul low cost. Also on short haul there's way too much competition. Norwegian has nothing to gain in the Dusseldorf market, they're better off using their capacity elsewhere.

All of the routes that are being cut are non-hub to non-hub, relying on O/D traffic only. And certainly in the off-season, that often leads to low load factors and low yields. They need their routes to touch their hubs in order to provide feed to their network, these flights don't do that. So it's a good thing they're being cut.

Talking about the Canary Islands destinations, Germany is the first market for tourism there, also, it is not seasonal, as it is Summer year-round in the Islands.
I have never seen a plane with more than 2 - 3 unoccupied seats to the Canary Islands, and I fly there at least 2 times a year, from both Italy with Ryanair, or from Germany with TUI / Condor.
So IMHO DUS - Canary Islands routing has no yield problems...

Gotta love all the cynical talk in this forum from armchair CEOs. Norwegian was ''gonna go bust any minute'' since 2017. I'll choose to wait and see, as should everyone here, because 99% of us don't know what we're talking about.

OA940 wrote:

Gotta love all the cynical talk in this forum from armchair CEOs. Norwegian was ''gonna go bust any minute'' since 2017. I'll choose to wait and see, as should everyone here, because 99% of us don't know what we're talking about.

I applaud you. Finally someone has the guts to acknowledge the fact that people in this forum know very little of what is really going on inside Norwegian at this very moment.

Another factor is overcapacity to Spain. The leisure market to Turkey and Egypt out of Germany is gearing up again as the political situation there is relatively "stable" at the moment. Spain was an alternative for the last years for holiday travel. I also read about sharp declining numbers to the Canaries as well,

Loving the comments about airmchair CEOs and yes, whilst true that none of us are on the inside it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the airline is deep in the mire.

If nothing else, the seat sale of $115 across the pond for the entire Winter should be raising a red flag. Bear in mind seat costs are so ewhere between 3x and 4x this level of revenue and you will begin to see what kind of bloodbath will follow.

Last Winter the airline average fare, which included all the short haul routes was above this figure so if this sale causes that to drop further it will be carnage,

Q3 will be a real eye opener. Our data suggests 20% increased seat costs and 1% increased revenue. That will take out all the profit and more and give the airline no buffer to see it through Winter.

The airline has been issuing shares, selling assets and defaulting on loans. Heavily loss making, it still has 9x 787s, 30x 321s and almost 100 x737s on order. That is around 80 additional units over what is being replaced. The long-haul LGW routes are now facing intense competition from BA shich has reconfigured and fully-depreciated 777s competing with the brand new 787s. Seat capacity on many of these markets has doubled.

But, hey, I might be completely wrong and the airline could become a resounding success by 2020. I very much doubt it.