Norwegian strongly affected by closed European airspace in April
Friday 7, May 2010
Norwegian’s passenger figures were strongly affected by the unexpected closing of European airspace in April due to volcanic ash. Close to 2,000 flights were cancelled. A total of 800,000 passengers flew with Norwegian. The company had a production growth of 13 percent compared to April last year.
"April has been a challenging month for Norwegian because of the authorities' closing of European airspace, but we are satisfied with the April figures taking the severe disruption into consideration.
Our passengers have suffered, and Norwegian have lost at least NOK 100 million. We have done everything in our power to safely transport our stranded passengers home, and we commenced flight operations as soon as we were given clearance by the authorities. We are pleased that traffic is now back to normal, and we are very satisfied with a 91 percent on-time performance, particularly given the major disruptions we have been subjected to," said Bjørn Kjos, Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian.
The yield is estimated at 0.51 NOK for April, down 19 percent compared to the same month in 2009. The development partially reflects a significantly adjusted route portfolio and the introduction of five new Boeing 737-800 aircraft with higher capacity and lower unit cost. The yield is also negatively affected by the closing of European airspace.
The airline's load factor was 71 percent, 8 percent lower than April 2009. The reduction is partially caused by slow recovery of passenger traffic during the first week of resumed operations.
Norwegian operated 79.9 percent of its scheduled flights in April, of which 91.1 percent departed on time. The underlying regularity adjusted for the disruptions due to the closure of European airspace was 96.6 percent.
Plan your trips with the help of great resources
More and more travellers think that researching and planning a European city break is half the fun and they're not interested in pre-arranged trips or escorted tours. Self-guided tours offer a lot of advantages but require some guidance and good resources.
Top 10 most environmentally pure countries
With the recent wild fires, disrupting flights and increasing air pollution, environmental quality is a growing factor in attracting tourists.
Top 15 most spectacular hotel rooftop views
The hotel price comparison site www.trivago.co.uk has put together a list of the fifteen most spectacular hotel rooftop terraces in the world.
Latest offers, discounts and more...