New player on the long haul flight market
As the Scandinavian press reports, we can expect a new player on the long haul flight market to emerge within 3-4 years. The new carrier will initially offer flights from Scandinavia to e.g. the United States and gradually widen its route network and thus challenge the position SAS has enjoyed when it comes to long flights from Scandinavia. Behind this daring project is Bjørn Kjos, the CEO of Norwegian Air Shuttle
„I cannot see why we should not be able to offer air fares starting at NOK 2000” he says and adds that we cannot expect all the airfares to be in this price category. „What we need is differentiation. Look at Air Asia, they tried offer flight without business class but it did not work”, he adds and suggests dividing the cabin into classes, a solution that Norwegian has been trying to avoid so far.
Bjøs Kjos announces that the plans for the next 3-4 years to come are to purchase around 15 planes from Boeing and Airbus and reach the number of 30-50 destinations.
He believes the new company will have a bright future as the tourist traffic is yet the boost the aviation branch. He predicts also that as far as the tourist and business traffic is concerned the future belongs to Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Sources – Aftenposten and Dagens Industri
