Norwegian Announces June Passenger Numbers

LONDON – On July 6, the Nordic carrier, Norwegian, released its June 2022 passenger traffic figures, which show some stark improvements.

The Figures…

To start things off, Norwegian has had a mega month of June, with passenger traffic figures being their highest since the start of the Covid pandemic.

For June 2022, Norwegian saw a total of 1,937,318 passengers travel across its network, a staggering 19% increase compared to May 2022, which stood at 1,628,040 passengers.

This June 2022 figure, is yet again a major improvement compared to last year’s June figure, which stood at 225,509 passengers.

Norwegian’s load factor for June 2022 was 84.9%, a 4.7 percentage point increase compared to May 2022’s 79.2% load factor. Their June 2022 capacity, also known as ASK (Available Seat Kilometres) stood at 2,924 million whilst their actual passenger traffic, also known as RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometres) stood at 2,482 million.

Comparing June’s ASK to May 2022’s stood at 2,459 million, some 465,000 kilometers difference, and their RPK figure for May 2022 stood at 1,947 million, a 535,000 difference.

The carrier’s on-time performance was unfortunately down compared to May 2022’s 84.9% with June 2022 standing at 70%, of which this is measured based on flights departing within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure times.

However, 93% of their flights arrived on schedule or no more than an hour late.

To hit these new figures, Norwegian operated on average a total of 68 aircraft in June 2022, of which completed 99.1% of their scheduled services.

On top of a very good month of June for Norwegian, just two weeks ago they had inked a new deal with Boeing for 50 new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, with 30 options on-top for a potential total of up to 80 of the type.

Deliveries of this major deal for Norwegian are expected to happen between 2025 and 2028.

Despite the good June, Norwegian had suffered strikes from aircraft technicians as well as issues with its cabin crew and pilots.

However, the positive side is that they have reached a two-year collective bargaining agreement with their respective unions and the aircraft technicians’ strike was ended following a compulsory arbitration announcement made by the Norwegian Minister of Labour.

Commenting on their strong June performance, Norwegian’s Chief Executive Officer, Geir Karlsen, has said, “I am very satisfied that we operated almost 100 percent of our 400 to 450 daily scheduled flights this month.”

“It has been a challenge due to a strike amongst aircraft technicians in Norway and the constraints at certain airports in Europe.”

“We are satisfied with the agreement reached with our cabin crew and the Norwegian Pilot Union and we are also happy to have our aircraft technicians back at work to ensure that our flights are operating as normal.”

“This means that we can deliver on the routes we have promised our customers. We are currently experiencing high demand this summer, but seats are still available to many destinations in Europe.”