Budget Airline Norwegian To Cut 1,200 Jobs In Spain

Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle, currently under bankruptcy protection after the pandemic pushed into a record loss last year, said Tuesday it plans to axe 85 percent of its workforce in Spain.

The no-frills airline has informed unions of its plans to axe up nearly 1,200 cabin crew in Spain as part of a group-wide restructuring programme.

Norwegian will retain just two of its five bases in Spain — in the southern coastal cities of Malaga and Alicante — as part of a reduction of its short-haul operations.

Like other airlines, Norwegian has been hit hard by the dramatic drop in air travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic and last year saw passenger numbers plummet by 81 percent to just 6.87 million.

Placed under bankruptcy protection in both Ireland and Norway, the carrier saw its bottom-line loss widen 15-fold to 23 billion kroner (2.2 billion euros, $2.7 billion) last year.

It has already closed its long-haul operations — where it had been a pioneer in launching low-cost transatlantic flights in 2017 — to instead focus on the Nordic market.

But the company racked up repeated losses, partly because of technical misfortunes. Its Boeing 777 Dreamliners encountered problems with their Rolls-Royce engines, and then its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft were grounded, as elsewhere in the world, after two fatal crashes.

At the same time, the company’s ambitious expansion programme saddled it with mountains of debt.

Spain, the world’s second most visited country after France before the pandemic, is the only country outside of Scandinavia where Norwegian said it plans to maintain a “permanent presence”.