Norwegian, the largest Norwegian airline and one of Europe’s leading low-cost carriers saw passenger numbers reach over 2 million in June.
The load factor was 86 percent. Booking numbers for the summer are positive, as is the outlook for air travel demand in August and September.
“I am pleased to see that we have welcomed the highest number of passengers on our planes so far this year. We are looking forward to meeting an even larger number of passengers onboard our planes in July, the busiest travel month of the year,” said Geir Karlsen, CEO of Norwegian.
Norwegian had 2,026,413 passengers in June, up 5 per cent from June 2022. The capacity (ASK) was 3,130 million seat kilometres, while actual passenger traffic (RPK) was 2,686 million seat kilometres. In June, Norwegian operated an average of 78 aircraft with a regularity, share of scheduled flights taking place, of 99.6 percent. Punctuality was at 76.4 percent in June, the share of flights departing within 15 minutes of scheduled time. However, 95.5 per cent of all departed flights arrived on schedule or within one hour of scheduled arrival time.
Capacity in June was at the highest so far this year and will continue to increase in July. The air traffic control issues at Copenhagen airport that impacted our operations in June have improved. In May, Cirium, an airline analytics company, named Norwegian the most punctual airline in Europe.
Strengthening the position as a leading airline in the Nordics
“Although our operations were impacted by air traffic control issues, particularly in Denmark and France, our punctuality, when measured by arriving within 60 minutes of our scheduled time, was satisfactory. This demonstrates our ability to perform under challenging circumstances. Demand for summer air travel has been strong, but some seats are still available for any last-minute sun seekers," said Karlsen.
Booking numbers for August and September are positive and Norwegian continues its efforts to strengthen its position as a leading airline in the Nordics. Last month, Norwegian announced the establishment of a joint company together with Strawberry. The goal is to provide a wider selection of services to the members of the companies’ respective loyalty programmes and to invite more partners to join this collaboration. The company will create a common loyalty currency and a platform where members can earn and use loyalty points across different programmes. The entity will be jointly owned by Norwegian and Strawberry whose combined loyalty programmes have a total of around 7.5 million members in the Nordic countries. Details about the company and the loyalty currency will be made public at the launch later this year.