Norwegian limits winter losses and eyes very strong summer ahead

Having exited bankruptcy protection in May 2021, the newly restructured Scandinavian low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA (Norwegian) abandoned its long-haul operations and focused primarily on high-frequency domestic flights, as well as business flights to London and holiday destinations such as the Mediterranean.

The carrier has just released its financial results for the first quarter of 2023 and Norwegian has successfully limited its operating losses (EBIT) to NOK 916 million. Profit before tax (EBT) amounted to a loss of NOK 992 million. The liquidity position improved through the quarter with cash and cash equivalents at quarter-end increasing to NOK 8.6 billion.

In the first quarter of 2023, Norwegian had 3.8 million passengers, up from 2.2 million in the first quarter of 2022. Production (ASK) was 6.0 billion seat kilometres, while passenger traffic was 4.9 billion seat kilometres. Production was down 13% from the previous quarter as Norwegian utilised its fleet flexibility to match capacity to seasonally lower demand. The quarterly load factor was 80.9% which shows that capacity was well adjusted to lower demand.