Norwegian is seeking to restructure long-term debts of $380 million by asking its bondholders extra time to repay the money, the airline said on September 2.
Norwegian has two unsecured bonds that need to be repaid by November 2021 and February 2022. It has asked bondholders a 2-year extension. As security it gives a package that includes all its slots at London Gatwick worth $380 million.
In a financial update the low-cost airline says its Q2-results have been negatively affected by the grounding of the Boeing MAX-fleet and delayed deliveries, resulting in slower growth than anticipated. Groundings of its Rolls-Royce Trent 1000-powered Boeing 787’s due to compressor-blade issues and the need to wet-lease capacity (from HiFly’s Airbus A380) also impacted working capital by a combined NOK 1.5 billion.
Thirdly, Norwegian has seen a tightening of terms of credit card acquirers. Customers bought but not acquired tickets worth NOK 9 billion, affecting working capital in Q2 by 4 billion.
In addition to the deferral of payments to bondholders, Norwegian is to restructure its financials by continuing its NOK 2 billion cost-cutting program. It has sold Norwegian Finans Holding ASA (Nofi) for NOK 2.218 billion, with net proceeds attributable to this year of 914 million. It also divested aircraft worth $127 million and will soon announce a joint-venture that will own most of Norwegian’s fleet in order to reduce fleet costs.
Active as a journalist since 1987, with a background in newspapers, magazines, and a regional news station, Richard has been covering commercial aviation on a freelance basis since late 2016.
Richard is contributing to AirInsight since December 2018. He also writes for Airliner World, Aviation News, Piloot & Vliegtuig, and Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine. Twitter: @rschuur_aero.
