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Norwegian air Shuttle is a scheduled publicly traded passenger low-cost no-frills airline. It began flying on January 22, 1993 by taking over routes of the defunct regional carrier Busy Bee using Fokker 50s aircraft. The company operated feeder routes for Braathens and served the airports of Haugesund, Kristiansund, Molde, Stavanger and Trondheim.
After the acquisition of Braathens by SAS in November 2001, SAS elected not to continue the feeder relationship with Norwegian. In April 2002 it announced plans to Launch a low-cost, low-fare domestic operation using Boeing 737s. Beginning September 2002, its services were rebranded as Norwegian. Norwegian started operations on trunk routes in Norway connecting Oslo with Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø. Its network grew rapidly on domestic as well as international network. In April 2003 its feeder contract with Braathens/SAS was terminated. A new subsidiary was crested, Norwegian air Shuttle Polska, and a new base in Warsaw was established in June 2006. On July 31, 2007, Norwegian acquired FlyNordic which was rebranded as Norwegian.se on April 12, 2008. A base opened at Rygge Airport Moss (February 2008) and at Copenhagen (October 2008), following the demise of Sterling. In 2008, the airline began receiving Boeing 737-800s. The Swedish subsidiary was merged into Norwegian air Shuttle on July 1, 2009. Norwegian air Shuttle Polska was liquidated in 2011.
In 2011 the company handled over 16 million passengers becoming 3rd larges low cost airline in Europe after Ryanair and Easyjet. On January 25, 2012, airline announced an order for 222 new jets including 100 737MAX, 100 A320neo and 22 737-800s. In 2012 a new subsidiary was established, Norwegian Long Haul, to operate international routes with Boeing 787s. Flights began in May 2013, and US crew bases were established in 2014.
In 2013, the airline established two other subsidaries, Dublin-based Norwegian Air International, and Norwegian Air Norway (which ultimately never began operations), which assumed flying from the Scandanavian bases outside of Helsinki. Operations of Norwegian Long Haul were transferred to Norwegian air Shuttle in mid-2014. Another subsidary, Norwegian Air UK was established in 2015 but ceased operations in March 2020 with the COVID outbreak
As early as 2018 it was reported that the carrier was running out of cash, and in 2019 began to take cost-cutting measures, such as closing crew bases outside of Norway which were manged by a contractor. The COVID pandemic drastically reduced revenues and on April 27, 2020 it announced that it would ground all but seven 737s operating only on domestic routes; by July some international services within Europe resumed. It had received some aid from the Norwegian government, but a request for credit guarantees from the Swedish government was denied. On November 18, 2020 the airline filed for bankruptcy (in Ireland), and cuts it operations back down to eight airplanes.
The bankruptcy resulted in the airline permanently terminating its long haul services, cancelling its outstanding order with Airbus and Boeing, and cancelling leases on other 737s. Its reorganization plan calls for the operation of 50 Boeing 737s, increasing to 68 in 2022. It Norwegian Air International subsidiary was shut down, moving operations to Norwegian Air Sweden. The company exited bankruptcy on May 26, 2021
Arctic Aviation Assets is the leasing subsidiary of Norwegian Air parent holding group.
ICAO call sign changed to NORDIC april,2022.
founded - demised (age)
January 22 1993 - present (32years)
headquarters
Oksenoyveien 3, P.O. Box 115, NO-1330, Fornebu
web
base airports
related operators
current /stored fleet (84)
