Norse aims to crack challenge of low-cost transatlantic travel
Bjorn Tore Larsen is trying to crack one of the great challenges in aviation: creating a successful low-cost transatlantic airline. The CE of Norwegian start-up Norse Atlantic, which flew the first of its daily services between London Gatwick and New York on Friday, believes enduring demand for travel and a “cautious” approach will help his airline succeed where others have failed and establish a credible rival to dominant carriers like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. “It is definitely very important for us to be conservative, simply because we are already in a business that eats cash if it gets the chance ,” he said. “I would be a fool if I did not admit the aviation or the airline business is a risky business.” In addition to its service between London and New York, it has plans for a gradual expansion including Berlin to New York and Los Angeles, as well as routes already operating from its home base of Oslo. Many others have tried and failed to build a successful business on these transatlantic routes, from Freddie Laker’s Skytrain in the 1970s to Iceland’s Wow Air, which collapsed in 2019. Norse has leased 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliners that used to be flown by Norwegian Air Shuttle, another transatlantic upstart, which expanded rapidly into the long-haul market only to pull out in 2020, struggling under the weight of its own debt. Norwegian is now a short-haul only airline after a restructuring, but its boom and bust experience has not deterred Larsen. “We are very different. We are a very different company with a very different business model,” he said. While Norwegian combined long-haul flying with shorter flights within Europe in a complex schedule, Norse will focus only on a few point-to-point routes flown on aircraft leased at attractive rates at the height of the pandemic. “I know some people say a low-cost long-haul airline does not work, but I would say nobody has tried it, actually,” Larsen said. “You really haven’t seen a pure, long-haul carrier that has been able to manage the financial cycles of getting cheap, great aircraft . . . at a time where you can have low overhead costs.” <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-08-15/unaligned/norse-aims-to-crack-challenge-of-low-cost-transatlantic-travel
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Norse aims to crack challenge of low-cost transatlantic travel
Bjorn Tore Larsen is trying to crack one of the great challenges in aviation: creating a successful low-cost transatlantic airline. The CE of Norwegian start-up Norse Atlantic, which flew the first of its daily services between London Gatwick and New York on Friday, believes enduring demand for travel and a “cautious” approach will help his airline succeed where others have failed and establish a credible rival to dominant carriers like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. “It is definitely very important for us to be conservative, simply because we are already in a business that eats cash if it gets the chance ,” he said. “I would be a fool if I did not admit the aviation or the airline business is a risky business.” In addition to its service between London and New York, it has plans for a gradual expansion including Berlin to New York and Los Angeles, as well as routes already operating from its home base of Oslo. Many others have tried and failed to build a successful business on these transatlantic routes, from Freddie Laker’s Skytrain in the 1970s to Iceland’s Wow Air, which collapsed in 2019. Norse has leased 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliners that used to be flown by Norwegian Air Shuttle, another transatlantic upstart, which expanded rapidly into the long-haul market only to pull out in 2020, struggling under the weight of its own debt. Norwegian is now a short-haul only airline after a restructuring, but its boom and bust experience has not deterred Larsen. “We are very different. We are a very different company with a very different business model,” he said. While Norwegian combined long-haul flying with shorter flights within Europe in a complex schedule, Norse will focus only on a few point-to-point routes flown on aircraft leased at attractive rates at the height of the pandemic. “I know some people say a low-cost long-haul airline does not work, but I would say nobody has tried it, actually,” Larsen said. “You really haven’t seen a pure, long-haul carrier that has been able to manage the financial cycles of getting cheap, great aircraft . . . at a time where you can have low overhead costs.” <br/>
