Future of Norwegian uncertain again

Due to the ongoing Corona-pandemic, passenger demand is still on a very slow recovery and due to this Norwegian has asked the Norwegian government for another round of support. This time, however, the Norwegian government announced on 9 November that it has declined the request, stating that more investment would not be "a sound use of taxpayer's money".

The CEO of Norwegian has expressed that this decision comes as a "slap in the face", especially as competitors all around Europe receive state-aid and brings a lot of uncertainty for the survival of the airline.

So far the airline has managed to survive thanks to a previous support package from the Norwegian government, which totalled around USD 2 billion. It also reached an agreement with the lessors of their aircraft, which ended in the lessors acquiring large part of the airline's shares. However, it's good to note that Norwegian was already in a very bad financial shape before the Corona-crisis.

Norwegian will now need to develop a second restructuring package, which will be much harder to do with limited assets, a large debt and no government support.

Photo by Anton Homma