"Advent"
Some of the crews was not given a choice when it initially happen. It was take it or goodbye.

From 2015, when this happen:
"Half of Norwegian's pilots want to quit" and "75% of the 800 pilots surveyed would not recommend Norwegian as an employer"

https://e24.no/karriere-og-ledelse/i...sker-aa-slutte

https://www.norwegian.com/en/booking/package-deals/ guess they have a different view on a package then! The CAA WILL require financial viability as this was a hurdle they experienced in the past, fingers crossed they get some investment. Regarding the aircraft, NAS are behind on lease payments and need to catch up on these and probably pay a few months in advance to get in the air again. This being the case, the cash required is far beyond the dribble proposed. If OSM are accepted to the job furlough scheme it will at least give some income to the crews, but three months hence, they will all need recurrent training, the leases will be 5 months in arrears and the rest is predicable, sadly. BA, Easy, Ryan, Virgin can stand a chance of getting through this with their cash reserves, NAS has no cash.

Every company will need massive amount of recurrent training. Can you imagine crews being 3-4 months out of currency, I struggle to see how they will find enough Sims and trainers to be able to do this very quick.
So as for NAS regarding the crews, that won't be worse than any others, most likely it is easier to get government help now they got rid of all the non Core crews, than again who knows.

And they’ve done it:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobil.../idUSL5N2CC1YE

They haven't really got rid of the non-core crews yet. They've made the announcement, but actually have not physically done it. And that's because it's illegal and can't be done.

Today RYR received a huge sentence in Spain for the same reason. You can close bases and fire people, but you can't declare bankruptcy wherever you wish and keep flying in Norway like nothing happened because they will simply eat them in court.

Also, remember that firing staff gets rid of salary expenses, but the massive debt belongs to norwegian, no its subsidiaries. And no creditor or government is going to bail them out to keep a small operation in Norway simply because it's not worth it. It's actually much cheaper to let it go bust and start from zero without the liabilities.

All rumour aside, we will find out soon what the final outcome is on May 4th.

At least the change of the law is a step in the right direction of Norwegian's survival. I am no fan of the company and still remain pessimistic but I sincerely hope for everyone involved they pull through. A huge amount of unemployed pilots is only good for managers when negotiating a new CWA.

Technically they have not fired any staff in Spain or the UK. They have told OSM they no longer require their crew services. Therefore the pilots and cabin crew are still employed but via OSM.
So if any action was to take place against a company, it would be with the pilot and cabin crews employer, which is OSM UK or OSM Spain, not Norwegian.
I know OSM UK are doing everything they can for their employees.
As for Sweden and Denmark, I have no idea on employment law over there so cannot comment.
wish all the crews all the best and hope the 4th of May brings good news.

Actually we're not "OSM Spain" , we're NAR ES which is 51% owned by NAS and 49% by OSM so we're employed by Norwegian anyways not osm..they only manage the HR part etc
We're not fired. We're on ERTE for the moment like everyone else on all other companies. After the 4th we'll see...
Still find it interesting how most guys here commenting don't even work here...but they know it all 😬 Sofa Warriors I guess..

Maybe one of the few benefits of the current crisis is that atypical models of employment will be less socially acceptable in the future. Hey, we can hope.

The Spanish Unions are arguing that the crews "effectively worked for Norwegian" and therefore were protected by the ERTE laws, either way, there maybe a glimmer of hope

“(The new law) is a more efficient tool to ... sort out what parts of a business can be strong enough to survive,” Justice Minster Monica Maeland told parliament.

In other words, dump the LH operation, cull the non-profit making SH routes, retrench and build a solid base. As the aviation world will scrabble for revenues you will probably find a "gentleman agreement" in place on routes with heavy competition to give everyone a chance to drink from the pool. Code-share-R-US

Gentlemen’s agreement? Are you having a laugh...?

One of Norwegians problem at the moment is that all the big and/or institutional investors have exited the share and they are left with all shareholders with just small stakes each. Normally that would leave the company management in control but there is building up a momentum among the shareholders organizing against being watered out to nothing and the company depends on a shareholder yes vote if the debt is to be converted to shares, in addition to the debt holders agreement.
The company is becoming uncontrollable. If a shareholder revolt is coming expect board changes to follow since the current board is sitting based on shareholders no longer invested in the company.

Some are also flouting that the state would take over the assets if the company did go bust, to keep up the competition in the Norway/Scandinavia market. Doubtfull. Its a long time since a european country started up an airline, which is what it in reality would be seen as.

If small investors don’t (understandably) want their investment diluted, and vote against the debt to equity plan, they will maintain an undiluted share holding worth approximately zip of Norwegian fails. Personally, it feels like momentum is gathering towards acceptance of the plan, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

That is assuming that no funds would be raised during the liquidation.

Small inverstors have been buying a lot of shares lately. I doesn’t make sense. They know if this deal goes through the value will be next to nothing. If the company goes bust, the value will be nothing.
So now they demand the government to save them by injecting 10 billion NOK into the company.
It is a mess, that is sure.

I fail to understand why Norwegian should continue to trade. It has been a busted flush for years, when profits were there to be made. Their business plans never worked in the relatively good times. And now......

My sympathies to Norwegian employees and most of the management. It is a rotten deal for you. Better luck next time.

Interesting article:

https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/g7nVWJ/...vaar-situasjon

Specially the part where Karin S. Thorburn, professor at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) doubts that the new scheme could be of particular help to Norwegian. Among other things, she has bankruptcies and restructurings as her areas of expertise.

- Norwegian can to some extent get help with liquidity, but the problem is that in order to convert debt into equity, you need unanimity. Everyone has to agree, and they may as well be unanimous outside the reconstruction process.

She points to a possible problem.

- In addition, we have the problem of Norwegian having subsidiaries in Ireland and other countries. And they will not be subject to such a process. Only the Norwegian part will.

This thread does not have the feel of a chat in the bar over a plate of chicken wings, while complaining of the rotten American beer. As professional pilots we will have done a CRM course, and should understand the concepts of ‘motivated reasoning’ and ‘confirmation bias’. I get a strong impression that many of the posts being made here are not what they seem.
In the current world situation I would expect that competing airlines would be monitoring this thread and would probably throw the odd grenade into the mix in the hope of destabilising the situation, irrespective of the veracity of their assertions. I know this is not what PPRUNE was intended for, so whoever is moderating this thread, or the Virgin or Loganair threads, I urge you to remove these kinds of posts which could ultimately influence the livelihoods of a great many people.

Huh. CRM? Normally it’s the people who teach it who are the worst offenders !
Sorry for the thread drift. X

Very valid point. As we know, markets are driven as much by confidence as much as hardcore business results. There seems a group of posters that seem to cynically enjoy ‘talking down’ various airlines. It’s almost as though they are rubbing their hands in glee in anticipation at the potential demise of the next one. There have been some quite unpleasant comments on here about the ‘stupidity’ of crew that have chosen to work for Norwegian. If only there were so many jobs available we all had the choice to be really picky about employment offers - but there isn’t. My family member is potentially about to lose his job with NAS. He has been treated well there, he got his first break there, been part of a great team, made good friends, always got his first base choice and is as sad at losing the camaraderie as much as being made redundant. Sure, there have been negativities. HR has always been a bit chaotic but nowhere is perfect and if that’s the only main complaint, it’s doing pretty well.

Jacob Schram seemed to be doing a pretty good job of turning Norwegian around and although it was always going to be a slow process, was making headway into rationalising long term costs, then along came Covid. I would say on a positive note that the Norwegian government do seem to be doing their best to try and make things as accommodating as they can for NAS which indicates ideally they would like to see its continued existence.

This is a thread about hard times for Norwegian. What do you expect people to talk about? The price of coffee?
That you don’t like the negative outlook for the company doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it.
The other side is pretty good at making positive comments that are so rosy it is hard to imagine they come from anyone but the PR part of Norwegian. Uncle says things that come from the very top of the company, even before the CEO has said them in public. Should we moderate him? No, it is a free society with free speach. To moderate the parts we don’t like is what they do in North Korea, not here.

There is a difference between discussing the financial situation of an airline and constantly slagging off its employees and their choices.

And incidentally PPRUne isn’t free speech - Why do people think they can say what they like ?, this isn’t the United Nations , it’s a private domain which seems increasingly monetarised.

Have not seen much of the constant slagging off of Norwegian crew in this thread. On the other side there have been several «my relative works/worked there so you all must say nice things about the company» posts.

The US export/import bank is a major source of financing of Norwegians aircraft and they expect to get paid in full. They have a big part of the 22 billion NOK aircraft debt. That will be a problem for the loan for shares deal Norwegian is trying to pull off.

There has definately been a bit of both. However, I think some people (myself included) just have to speak up when we see so much uneducated bs, and just outright wrong information being thrown out there with no other explanation than; "I feel", "I think" or "I have heard".... I'm not sure who you work for "ManaAdaSystem" but I bet you have a few of those moments as well regarding your own company, or someone you have worked for/with from time to time...

As mentioned so many times before, we are living in unprecedented times. Almost all the big players are down on their knees and it is time to show solidarity towards our fellow pilots. At the moment the situation is so fluid that none of us know if we will end up with the company we used to "look down on" or maybe with nothing at all! I think a little bit of "Karma-awareness" would be in it's place for certain people right now.

Many of our thousand of colleagues are in a "holding pattern" in this very moment. -All searching for the slightest bit of hope or at least a glimmer of good news wherever possible. Also here on pprune! If we are to give them an educational warning, a heads-up or just some good old usable words of advice that actually applies to the real world, we need to apply some good manners and at least some information rooted in facts!

It will be VERY interesting to follow how the good/bad news is communicated on the 4th of May. We will see all the "I told you so's" or "they don't deserve to survive" trolls get out of the closet in no time. I think a moderator should be on "airport standby" for that one...

Stay safe and may you all be back in the air soon.

Good words SSDK.

i doubt anyone will wait to update their CV till the 4th though !

Stupid and unrelated advertising. Cute clothing, for heaven's sake!

Plan is to get rid of every third aircraft. Pretty much no short or longhaul production for the rest of 2020. Slow start in 2021 and back to normal (whatever that means) in 2022.

FT says just 7 a/c keep flying through April 2021, in Scandinavia ... assuming the D4E swap goes through. https://www.ft.com/content/0b04ed8b-...8-f6068b995627

PPrune’s ad provider is serving me ads on the Norwegian thread for consolidating loans. :oh:

https://www.norwegian.com/globalasse...april-2020.pdf

The presentation to bondholders is above.

The survival strategy seems to be 'screw everyone'

Page 17 =

"Other payments halted, including (but not limited to) ground handling, payments to OEMs, hedges, debt and lease payments"

" Filed for bankruptcy for Norwegian's pilot and cabin crew companies in Sweden and Denmark to further reduce costs Cancelled crew agreements with a number of jointly-owned OSM Aviation subsidiaries, all together affecting 1,571 pilots and 3,134 cabin crew Only 200 employees remain in operations"

Pretty much what was expected, asking the lease companies to write off the debts and convert arrears to shares, reduce the cost of leases, and ground all European SH and LH ops, just keeping the flag flying in Norway.. interesting proposal along the lines of "we've got you over a barrel" some practical suggestions too, but rely heavily of creditor good will and faith in the future outlook, and right now no one has any faith in aviation recovery as a whole. It's certainly crunch time for the leasing companies whom now run the risk of massively reduced payments and minimal maintenance meaning their assets may not be readily transferable if other customers are found. Bad news for the crews with little chance of gainful employment outside of Norway. For the sake of a few domestic routes and 7 aircraft its probably better to let the whole thing fold and re-start on a proper footing as the "plan" also suggests that "more fund may be needed" and the appetite for investment will be non existent given the "kill my granny and change my name policy". Good luck to those effected.

Doesn’t look great does it ? Even if LH starts again, ( in a year plus ) it’ll be fewer routes and more “ flexible “ crew ( which I read as seasonal contracts ).

Better apply all over the world then ...

I think the presentation is fairly conservative considering the current turmoil as it assumes operations to start for next summer season (April 2021) rather than speculating with earlier starts which would have very low demand and even possible demanding restrictions (middle seat bans, tough airport regulations, etc...).

One important point is that, as expected, LH will remain an important part of norwegian, not only from a branding perspective, but also because becoming a nordic regional carrier as some have speculated, is simply not worth it with a project of this magnitude as Scandinavia doesn't have the market or the catchment area to justify such an investment.

Tough decision for the creditors and bondholders this coming Thursday, although after today´s presentation, I'm more confident that they will vote favourably and, along with State Aid, norwegian might be able to survive to become an important player next year with a reduced but fairly similar project as they had before Covid 19.

As expected, the New Norwegian plans to keep the bases in northern Europe (OSL, SVG, BGO, TRD, ARN, CPH, HEL,..) and LGW. Reducing the fleet from 168 to 110-120 means a lot of base closures. NAI alone has 33 aircraft...

Paul737, where exactly did you see which bases will remain open in today's presentation? I know you're a die hard, but to state the above is quite an statement 🤪

I know you are a big fan of me! Wait for the 5th of May and you will see

Plan is to axe 50% of the long haul fleet.

Yes. I must admit that your posts are entertaining...😜

But so far you predicted that LH would disappear and it appears that it will remain as part of the operation, and not become a regional Nordic player.

I frankly don't think we will see any base announcements on May 5th or anytime soon, as it will all depend on business trends, country restrictions and profit margins rather than one's own wishes to have their base of choice remain open.

In any case, remember that if norwegian is lucky enough to still be alive on May 5th, and we all hope they do, it will pretty much be owned by their creditors and bondholders which are mainly American and Irish with almost no Scandinavian participation any longer other than the name on the side of the airplane.

And rest assured that they will open or close bases based in revenue and profit margins rather than national sentiment.