New airlines hope to take a bite out of reviving Nordic market

Icelandic airline Play launches its maiden flight this week, the latest newcomer betting on cheap planes and pent-up travel demand, undeterred by the near collapse of the region’s Norwegian Air. Even without a global pandemic, the competitive Nordic airline industry looks fraught with danger. SAS is still struggling to turn its business around, Wizz Air has scrapped its domestic routes in Norway, Wow collapsed in 2019 and Primera Air folded in 2018. Yet several newcomers are keen to step into the void once restrictions ease. They will operate routes from the Nordics to the rest of Europe and North America, hoping to take advantage of available slots and cheap planes and expecting demand to be strong. “It’s going to grow extremely quickly and, especially in the short and medium term, I think we will have huge demand,” said Birgir Jonsson, CEO of Play, which on Thursday will fly its first aircraft to London Stansted from Reykjavik. The region is attractive to airlines because its major cities are remote in relation to the rest of Europe and sparsely populated areas have few train lines. Iceland sits in the middle of the Atlantic while Norway stretches more than 2,200 km across fjords and mountains. Play plans to fly narrow-body Airbus A321 Neo aircraft, on lease on a flexible contract with AerCap, between Europe and North America, stopping in Iceland. Other new Nordic contenders are Flyr FLYR-ME.OL, with its maiden flight on June 30, and Norse Atlantic Airways NORSE-ME.OL, a transatlantic budget airline backed by Norwegian founder Bjoern Kjos starting in late 2021.<br/>