Norse Atlantic: high ambitions but still many boxes to tick

It hasn’t flown a single mile, hasn’t had a passenger on board, has no traffic rights, and no financial track record. Yet, there is much talk about Norway’s newest start-up long-haul low-cost airline Norse Atlantic Airways AS since it has been established on February 1. If only that was for the bravery of launching a new long-haul airline in the midst of a pandemic at a time when the outlook for this segment is far from rosy. We have a look at Norse’s plans and ambitions.

First some context: Norse Atlantic is jumping into the void that’s left by Norwegian. On January 14, Norwegian announced that its restructuring plan will concentrate on a domestic and European network and ditches the low-cost long-haul network which won its reputation in the past eight years. Within two weeks, founder Bjorn Tore Larsen

responded by setting up a modest management team to create Norse Atlantic on February 1.

Larsen is no stranger to aviation, have co-founded OSM Group which includes OSM Aviation and OSM Maritime. He continues to have a controlling share in the company and act as CEO, which he has done so until 2013 and again from March 2019. In a joint venture with Norwegian (in which it holds a 3.6 percent share), OSM Aviation has been responsible for sourcing, training, and managing cockpit and cabin crew. In 2019, Norwegian canceled crew provision agreements with a number of jointly owned subsidiaries. At Norse, OSM will provide crew management and services related to airworthiness and technical management of the operational control center, ground services, flight safety management, and IT.