13 ms·

Norwegian Air to cancel 85% of flights and temporarily lay off 90% of staff

400 points by spking 7y ago

atlasunshrugged 7y ago
I'll be fascinated to see which airlines make it out of this alive (with and without a bailout) and the long term repercussions. Seems like the cheapo airlines will probably go under relatively quickly because they're on razor thin margins but even United and anyone with global route exposure is going to get hurt really badly by this.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Forget about just global routes, all or nearly all routes might be grounded soon enough. It would be the sensible thing to do.
- Svip 7y ago
  I am starting to think that only the partly/fully state-owned airlines will make it out alive.
  - wp381640 7y ago
    Airlines are too important to the economy - plenty of them will get gov guarantees / bailouts
- pkaye 7y ago
  I think the airlines from the middle east might survive since they are propped up by the state. For example Emirates and Etihad. And of course China is in good shape to prop up their own airlines.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  To me it feels that the deciding factor will be in the differences of how different airlines have structured their airplane ownership/rentals/leasing/whatever; for some airlines downsizing to a smaller number of planes will be much cheaper than others.
- sushikokk 7y ago
  Yes, interesting. Hope Norwegian survive. Before Norwegian I often paid like 350$ for a trip to Oslo (40 minutes). It was only one single provider, SAS. After Norwegian arrived usually around 100, often 50.
- kzrdude 7y ago
  With all the european countries closing their borders on a small continent, it's pretty easy to guess that the european airlines will be hit worst. They don't have much domestic traffic to fall back to.
- fulafel 7y ago
  It's basically a doomed industry in the medium to long term (unless humanity collectively decides to fly straight into a wall wrt global CO2 emissions). Any politician using tax money to prop this up is acting irresponsibly and unethically.
  - spaceandshit 7y ago
    However, people need to travel. And they will travel. Calling it a doomed industry is bogus.
    - fulafel 7y ago
      There is a demand for air travel obviously but no absolute need. We don't have to stop it completely, just most of it.
drfuchs 7y ago
So one third of the remaining flights won’t have a pilot?
- jrockway 7y ago
  Airlines are companies like any other, and they have a lot of employees that aren't flight crew. Someone has to negotiate benefits, write HR handbooks, forecast the weather, dispatch flights, update their website, "reimagine cabin interiors", etc. I am sure you can end up with a very large organization outside of people that show up at the airport to deal with customers.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
There should probably be a sense in which it is criminally negligent to run a business of this size in such a way that a ~6 week period of market crash behavior can imply a need to to layoff 90% of staff. I understand businesses have to make tough choices, but this seems like egregiously irresponsible planning, akin to using every paycheck for exorbitant luxury while figuring you can use a credit card for necessities and coast on some equilibrium of credit card payments. It’s ridiculous for large corporations like this to not have sufficient reserves to ride it out for lengthy periods of time while disallowing “lay everyone off” from being a side effect.
- digitaltrees 7y ago
  That is impossible. No business can see a 50% drop in revenue over an extended period of time and survive. That is, unless we assume that the price setting function of markets is suspended. Supply and demand will result in razor thin margins unless we get rid of competition and allow monopolies.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Is 6 weeks really an "extended period of time" ?, we are barely a few weeks into a global crisis and already companies are collapsing, that's an indicator of just how insanely fragile things are.
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      6 weeks is a damn eternity. Modern supply chains are stupid highly optimized.
      - throwaway2048 7y ago
        highly optimized means insanely fragile in terms of disruption.
    - digitaltrees 7y ago
      If there was absolute certainty that the disruption would only be 6 weeks then a business could take the hit and recover over time; this may be a longer term drop in demand such that they have to make drastic cuts immediately.
noncoml 7y ago
The problem with the airlines is that pretty much everyone has been bitten by them one way or another(unexpected fees, unreasonable policies, etc..) so it will be difficult to get any sympathy from the public.
- arrrg 7y ago
  I have no sympathy for the airline as an abstract corporate entity. I do have tons of empathy for the many people who lost their job.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Do you think most of these laid-off workers are responsible for the pricing structure and policies? Or do you think most of them are just working people trying to earn a living?
  - noncoml 7y ago
    If you are talking about blue collar jobs I am with you. Anything above that and people have to start rethinking their choices and be held accountable for their choices. By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. Or soldiers who did atrocities because they were just trying to be good soldiers.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. No you shouldn't - they need to put food on their families' tables just like you do. > Or soldiers who did atrocities because they were just trying to be good soldiers. Well committing an atrocity is a crime. If people are acting criminally that's different. And if they're committing atrocities then they aren't good soldiers, are they?
      - noncoml 7y ago
        > > By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. > No you shouldn't - they need to put food on their families' tables just like you do. I disagree. They have any option who to work for, as you and I, and they chose to work for unethical companies. They don't need to put food on their families' table. I am not judging as everyone makes their own choices, but it's good to hold them responsible. Maybe I would have done the same or do so in the future. But I wouldn't expect people to feel empathy for me when shit hit the fan.
nbclark 7y ago
I feel bad for the employees...not so much for the airline. Norwegian was the worst nickel&diming airline I've ever been on.
- ilyagr 7y ago
  I wonder what kind of compensation from the company and the government the laid-of employees are entitled to. It's Scandinavia after all. I don't know enough to say they'll be fine, but there's a chance it's not as bad as it sounds.
  - nattmat 7y ago
    20 days of full pay during the temporary lay-off. Then unemployment benefits for up to two years with 62% of full salary (cut off at about 30000 NOK per month)
  - sushikokk 7y ago
    The ones employed in Norway: full pay first 20 days, then 80% to 62,4% depending on salary. Company only pays the first 2 days, the government the rest.
- oreoftw 7y ago
  IMO it was good for its price. Who else would sell you USA <> EU for $300 for a two way ticket?
  - dewey 7y ago
    Wow Air, until they went out of business. But it was supposed to come back this year, in light of recent events probably not any more.
- s_dev 7y ago
  It's not like those savings weren't passed on to consumers. I recall buying a flight from Dublin to New York for €200 with Norwegian.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
the8472 7y ago
That is one way to get CO2 emissions down, perhaps more will follow their lead.
- youareostriches 7y ago
  Whether people like it or not, shrinking global economic activity in fuel-heavy and extractive industries (by extension, via demand destruction) is inevitably linked to reducing carbon emissions. We must be prepared to give up certain things for the sake of our ecosystem.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    How many people are you willing to kill in order to reduce carbon emissions? https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      How many people are you willing to kill in order to continue polluting the planet: https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution
    - youareostriches 7y ago
      The reason economic recessions kill people is because our system doesn't currently guarantee people the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, and health care. This is a political choice to let people die in order to preserve the status quo -- it is not an inevitability.
vsareto 7y ago
US Airlines are now looking directly for assistance as well: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/us-airlines-seek-more-than-50-billion-in-aid-as-coronavirus-roils-business.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/us-airlines-seek-more-than-5...
- coldcode 7y ago
  Gov is handing out money like the printing presses are fired up, everyone will be asking. The major US carriers are not in terrible shape unlike Norwegian.
fxtentacle 7y ago
I am surprised that they are allowed to do that, since this is the EU and we do have employee protections. Oh, it's a click-bait title. The text itself says "will [..] temporarily lay off 7,300 employees", so this is still in the planning stage and not meant to be permanent.
- ailideex 7y ago
  Norway is not EU. And many places that is not EU have employee protections. You don't need EU for that.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    Most of Norwegian's employees are not in Norway. Their staff in Norway will have extensive employee protections. Their staff at their UK and US hubs are in far weaker positions.
unixhero 7y ago
Not firing, temporary full time leave without pay. Important to note that the Norwegian government will pay full salary for 20 days of the first. At least we're talking about Norwegian employees on a Norwegian contract. The same thing goes from SAS.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Important to note that the Norwegian government will pay full salary for 20 days of the first. Does that include the crews who are typically based in foreign countries to skirt Norwegian labor laws?
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    I doubt it. American staff in particular are probably screwed.
    - foogazi 7y ago
      Don’t they get unemployment checks?
      - unixhero 7y ago
        Yes. These are substantially lower than a full time pay with benefits.
      - angry_octet 7y ago
        For a far smaller amount than their normal incomes, only for 26 weeks at most, ceasing as soon as they get any job, and requiring them to undertake job seeking activities. And provided they have worked for at least a quarter. Only as long as their
  - aliceryhl 7y ago
    Probably not. The three main Scandinavian countries are all working on some sort of wage compensation package that includes SAS and Norwegian in the case of Norway, but they are each targeted at employees who live in the respective countries.
johnnymonster 7y ago
It's a temporary layoff and it's exactly what they should be doing. When they lay off the employees, they are able to collect unemployment benefits from the government. It's a perfect strategy so that the employees will be ok instead of not receiving wages. once things rebound, they can hire them back again and all is good.
- nostromo 7y ago
  Airlines have large fixed costs and debt to pay. They will not bounce back quickly, or at all. That's why they're asking for a bailout.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Especially the budget carriers, which tend to lease (not own) their planes. They are gonna be hemorrhaging an unfathomable amount of money if they can't get a several month pause on lease payments on their planes.
    - gsnedders 7y ago
      To be fair, the leasing companies may well be more inclined to give them a pause on their payments now than normal. If they repossess the aircraft for lack of payments, what other customers do they have for them in the short term?
      - godzillabrennus 7y ago
        None but they can sell them to another group of PE and recoup the Capital their investors are probably clamoring to reclaim in light of the industries issues. Their LP’s would probably take a hit to unlock the cash and get into something more likely to rebound faster.
        HenryBemis 7y ago
        Selling won't work. If suddenly "many" airlines start selling, the demand won't be that high, and 1) the prices will plummet and 2) there won't be enough buyers so some airlines will be severely damaged (anyway)(better fewer than all I guess).
dwheeler 7y ago
I expect all Airlines to cancel many of their flights and have to temporarily lay off a lot of their people. It is unlikely a lot of people will be doing travel for mamy weeks, and I suspect the ramp back up to normal will be slow.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
_bxg1 7y ago
*temporarily lay off
klhugo 7y ago
Misleading title, change it, it just spreads panic.
fasteo 7y ago
Slightly off topic. To any Norwegians around HN: Were they in trouble before the corona crisis ? Stock value[1] started a heavy downward trend around Feb 2018, from 171 down to 41 before corona crisis, down to 7 as of today. I am based in Spain, and I am seeing this same trend in some local companies. It seems that coronavirus is the trigger for an existing, latent problem. [1] https://www.reuters.com/companies/NWC.OL/charts https://www.reuters.com/companies/NWC.OL/charts
- Jommi 7y ago
  Yes they were, cheap longhaul flights stopped being profitable and they were having huge issues. I think low cost longhaul will die after this epidemic.
  - kzrdude 7y ago
    Norwegian was pretty hard hit by the 737-MAX crisis
- vegardx 7y ago
  They have been struggling for quite some time. They got hit quite bad with the grounding of 737 MAX (10% of fleet), and before that they a lot of issues with the 787 Dreamliner (20% of fleet).
  - hjnilsson 7y ago
    They also signed a contract pegging fuel prices for the foreseeable future when oil price was $70. Several unlucky breaks in a row, I don’t really think it will be saved. SAS might though.
  - tyfon 7y ago
    They've also been "gearing" their business a lot using massive amounts of debt. They were extremely sensitive to changes in income.
- mihaaly 7y ago
  The Norwegian was in trouble way before the virus. They had to be rescued due to mounting losses. The 737 MAX crisis also hit them hard to which they were exposed more than average. Some links (there are much more): https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/09/16/norwegian-given-time-as-bondholders-accept-rescue-plan/#206813f247f1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/09/16/norwegian... https://qz.com/1688156/why-is-norwegian-air-failing/ https://qz.com/1688156/why-is-norwegian-air-failing/ Because of the troubles I avoided them for transatlantic travel not risking last minute cancellations due to bankruptcy. I doubt that I was alone.
InTheArena 7y ago
Norwegian was near death many many times before this hit. Coronavirus just makes the death inevitable. This is too bad, I really did love their product. Their premium economy seats were well priced, and only on 787, which really helped with jetlag due to the higher humidity and lower pressurization of the CFRP frame. That said, it's going to be hard to see who doesn't go bankrupt with the virus. Airlines are on limited margins at the best of time, and parking half the fleet makes their business model untenable very quickly. The other thing is that unlike almost all of the rest of the world, airports in the US are still publicly owned, and funded by per-passenger fees. A lot of cities are going to have a massive gaping hole in their budgets because of that.
- bfieidhbrjr 7y ago
  CFRP :-)
  - InTheArena 7y ago
    thx. fixed.
- mihaaly 7y ago
  You meant higher pressurization?
  - spaceandshit 7y ago
    Not OP, but yes that would be correct. I think they meant lower altitude, higher pressure. 787s are at around ~6000ft pressure altitude, and most others are at 8000ft. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization
- refurb 7y ago
  Norwegian has been near death for a couple years.[1] Which is a shame as I had a great experience when I flew and the cost can't be beat ($500 return from SFO to Barcelona). [1]https://www.cntraveler.com/story/norwegian-air-is-taking-last-ditch-measures-to-avoid-bankruptcy https://www.cntraveler.com/story/norwegian-air-is-taking-las...
allovernow 7y ago
I just don't see how these closures aren't going to ripple through the global economy. The market is down 25% YTD after two desperate stimulus measures - $1.5T injection and interest rates cut to zero. What are you going to prop up when world travel and trade is shut down? And domestic regions are locked down too? The kicker is that we had been seeing negative long term indicators for a while before this - inverted yield curve, and long overdue for the approximately 7 year recession cycle, among other indicators. I would love to be convinced otherwise but, regardless of the outcome of the 2019ncov situation, this is shaping up to be a trigger for a global recession, possibly a depression. Modern society cannot sustain itself indoors without radical measures. The vast majority of people probably work at jobs that cannot be performed remotely.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > I just don't see how these closures aren't going to ripple through the global economy. I can see it not rippling if (a) a vaccine comes out in time, or (b) people just give up and work anyway, accepting coronavirus as a risk of life. Unlike sacrificing everything for the sake of not getting coronavirus, that can actually go on indefinitely.
  - swiley 7y ago
    It sounds a little too serious for b. If you develop symptoms you may need serious medical attention (intubation) in order to survive regardless of age. Wether or not you develop symptoms you can develop serious organ damage that results in life long chronic health problems (due to damage to lungs, kidneys and testes.) It sounds to me like this virus is in fact much more serious than most people thought even with the hype.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      I didn't want to write it out again but you took the words out of my mouth. All of the worst [pending] peer reviewer papers are gradually being confirmed, it seems. The news has been getting consistently worse for literally two months now and we now have at least a dozen countries on lockdown, and growing.
fulafel 7y ago
I really hope governments will realize what a bad investment bailout money to airlines would be, given their doomed future as one of the main CO2 villain industries. (Not to mention casual air travel's role in spreading epidemics)
dcftoapv 7y ago
Norwegian was struggling financially before COVID 19. This isn't surprising. Norway has one of the world's most robust social support systems. I'm confident that they will deploy it well here.
KitDuncan 7y ago
My fiancé is currently in Orlando and booked her flight back to Germany with Norwegian for March 24. Does that mean the flight is cancelled? She hasn't received any notification from them.
- mopsi 7y ago
  Yes, the flight isn't going to happen. The EU will close all external borders for 30 days tomorrow at noon. If she is a citizen of Germany and doesn't have any symptoms, she can expect a seat on a repatriation flight. Contact appropriate embassies.
throwaway693659 7y ago
Throwaway for obvious reasons. It's not only about the pilots, crew, administration, etc. A major airline I am working for will lay off pretty much ~90% of its IT departement within 1 month as well.
- brnt 7y ago
  Since it's a throwaway, which airline is that? Asking for a friend...
totetsu 7y ago
Air New Zealand is also cutting 85%[1] of international flights and looking to cut 30 percent[2] of its workforce. [1]https://simpleflying.com/air-new-zealand-flight-cuts/ https://simpleflying.com/air-new-zealand-flight-cuts/ [2]https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/411892/union-seeks-a-voice-as-air-nz-prepares-to-axe-3500-jobs https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/411892/union-seeks-a-voi...
paulmd 7y ago
airlines are expecting a full travel ban soon (including domestic). Projections have United revenue down 9% this quarter and 95% next quarter (not a typo). https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-makes-airlines-consider-chances-for-a-halt-to-us-flights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-makes-airlines-c...

400 points by spking 7y ago

I'll be fascinated to see which airlines make it out of this alive (with and without a bailout) and the long term repercussions. Seems like the cheapo airlines will probably go under relatively quickly because they're on razor thin margins but even United and anyone with global route exposure is going to get hurt really badly by this.

CydeWeys 7y ago
Forget about just global routes, all or nearly all routes might be grounded soon enough. It would be the sensible thing to do.
Svip 7y ago
I am starting to think that only the partly/fully state-owned airlines will make it out alive.
- wp381640 7y ago
  Airlines are too important to the economy - plenty of them will get gov guarantees / bailouts
pkaye 7y ago
I think the airlines from the middle east might survive since they are propped up by the state. For example Emirates and Etihad. And of course China is in good shape to prop up their own airlines.
PeterisP 7y ago
To me it feels that the deciding factor will be in the differences of how different airlines have structured their airplane ownership/rentals/leasing/whatever; for some airlines downsizing to a smaller number of planes will be much cheaper than others.
sushikokk 7y ago
Yes, interesting. Hope Norwegian survive. Before Norwegian I often paid like 350$ for a trip to Oslo (40 minutes). It was only one single provider, SAS. After Norwegian arrived usually around 100, often 50.
kzrdude 7y ago
With all the european countries closing their borders on a small continent, it's pretty easy to guess that the european airlines will be hit worst. They don't have much domestic traffic to fall back to.
fulafel 7y ago
It's basically a doomed industry in the medium to long term (unless humanity collectively decides to fly straight into a wall wrt global CO2 emissions). Any politician using tax money to prop this up is acting irresponsibly and unethically.
- spaceandshit 7y ago
  However, people need to travel. And they will travel. Calling it a doomed industry is bogus.
  - fulafel 7y ago
    There is a demand for air travel obviously but no absolute need. We don't have to stop it completely, just most of it.

drfuchs 7y ago

So one third of the remaining flights won’t have a pilot?

jrockway 7y ago
Airlines are companies like any other, and they have a lot of employees that aren't flight crew. Someone has to negotiate benefits, write HR handbooks, forecast the weather, dispatch flights, update their website, "reimagine cabin interiors", etc. I am sure you can end up with a very large organization outside of people that show up at the airport to deal with customers.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

There should probably be a sense in which it is criminally negligent to run a business of this size in such a way that a ~6 week period of market crash behavior can imply a need to to layoff 90% of staff. I understand businesses have to make tough choices, but this seems like egregiously irresponsible planning, akin to using every paycheck for exorbitant luxury while figuring you can use a credit card for necessities and coast on some equilibrium of credit card payments. It’s ridiculous for large corporations like this to not have sufficient reserves to ride it out for lengthy periods of time while disallowing “lay everyone off” from being a side effect.

digitaltrees 7y ago
That is impossible. No business can see a 50% drop in revenue over an extended period of time and survive. That is, unless we assume that the price setting function of markets is suspended. Supply and demand will result in razor thin margins unless we get rid of competition and allow monopolies.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Is 6 weeks really an "extended period of time" ?, we are barely a few weeks into a global crisis and already companies are collapsing, that's an indicator of just how insanely fragile things are.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    6 weeks is a damn eternity. Modern supply chains are stupid highly optimized.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      highly optimized means insanely fragile in terms of disruption.
  - digitaltrees 7y ago
    If there was absolute certainty that the disruption would only be 6 weeks then a business could take the hit and recover over time; this may be a longer term drop in demand such that they have to make drastic cuts immediately.

noncoml 7y ago

The problem with the airlines is that pretty much everyone has been bitten by them one way or another(unexpected fees, unreasonable policies, etc..) so it will be difficult to get any sympathy from the public.

arrrg 7y ago
I have no sympathy for the airline as an abstract corporate entity. I do have tons of empathy for the many people who lost their job.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Do you think most of these laid-off workers are responsible for the pricing structure and policies? Or do you think most of them are just working people trying to earn a living?
- noncoml 7y ago
  If you are talking about blue collar jobs I am with you. Anything above that and people have to start rethinking their choices and be held accountable for their choices. By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. Or soldiers who did atrocities because they were just trying to be good soldiers.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. No you shouldn't - they need to put food on their families' tables just like you do. > Or soldiers who did atrocities because they were just trying to be good soldiers. Well committing an atrocity is a crime. If people are acting criminally that's different. And if they're committing atrocities then they aren't good soldiers, are they?
    - noncoml 7y ago
      > > By the same token I shouldn’t hold accountable Google or FB engineers who are just trying to make a living. > No you shouldn't - they need to put food on their families' tables just like you do. I disagree. They have any option who to work for, as you and I, and they chose to work for unethical companies. They don't need to put food on their families' table. I am not judging as everyone makes their own choices, but it's good to hold them responsible. Maybe I would have done the same or do so in the future. But I wouldn't expect people to feel empathy for me when shit hit the fan.

nbclark 7y ago

I feel bad for the employees...not so much for the airline. Norwegian was the worst nickel&diming airline I've ever been on.

ilyagr 7y ago
I wonder what kind of compensation from the company and the government the laid-of employees are entitled to. It's Scandinavia after all. I don't know enough to say they'll be fine, but there's a chance it's not as bad as it sounds.
- nattmat 7y ago
  20 days of full pay during the temporary lay-off. Then unemployment benefits for up to two years with 62% of full salary (cut off at about 30000 NOK per month)
- sushikokk 7y ago
  The ones employed in Norway: full pay first 20 days, then 80% to 62,4% depending on salary. Company only pays the first 2 days, the government the rest.
oreoftw 7y ago
IMO it was good for its price. Who else would sell you USA <> EU for $300 for a two way ticket?
- dewey 7y ago
  Wow Air, until they went out of business. But it was supposed to come back this year, in light of recent events probably not any more.
s_dev 7y ago
It's not like those savings weren't passed on to consumers. I recall buying a flight from Dublin to New York for €200 with Norwegian.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

the8472 7y ago

That is one way to get CO2 emissions down, perhaps more will follow their lead.

youareostriches 7y ago
Whether people like it or not, shrinking global economic activity in fuel-heavy and extractive industries (by extension, via demand destruction) is inevitably linked to reducing carbon emissions. We must be prepared to give up certain things for the sake of our ecosystem.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  How many people are you willing to kill in order to reduce carbon emissions? https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    How many people are you willing to kill in order to continue polluting the planet: https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution
  - youareostriches 7y ago
    The reason economic recessions kill people is because our system doesn't currently guarantee people the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, and health care. This is a political choice to let people die in order to preserve the status quo -- it is not an inevitability.

vsareto 7y ago

US Airlines are now looking directly for assistance as well: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/us-airlines-seek-more-than-50-billion-in-aid-as-coronavirus-roils-business.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/us-airlines-seek-more-than-5...

coldcode 7y ago
Gov is handing out money like the printing presses are fired up, everyone will be asking. The major US carriers are not in terrible shape unlike Norwegian.

fxtentacle 7y ago

I am surprised that they are allowed to do that, since this is the EU and we do have employee protections. Oh, it's a click-bait title. The text itself says "will [..] temporarily lay off 7,300 employees", so this is still in the planning stage and not meant to be permanent.

ailideex 7y ago
Norway is not EU. And many places that is not EU have employee protections. You don't need EU for that.
- vidarh 7y ago
  Most of Norwegian's employees are not in Norway. Their staff in Norway will have extensive employee protections. Their staff at their UK and US hubs are in far weaker positions.

unixhero 7y ago

Not firing, temporary full time leave without pay. Important to note that the Norwegian government will pay full salary for 20 days of the first. At least we're talking about Norwegian employees on a Norwegian contract. The same thing goes from SAS.

inferiorhuman 7y ago
Important to note that the Norwegian government will pay full salary for 20 days of the first. Does that include the crews who are typically based in foreign countries to skirt Norwegian labor laws?
- angry_octet 7y ago
  I doubt it. American staff in particular are probably screwed.
  - foogazi 7y ago
    Don’t they get unemployment checks?
    - unixhero 7y ago
      Yes. These are substantially lower than a full time pay with benefits.
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      For a far smaller amount than their normal incomes, only for 26 weeks at most, ceasing as soon as they get any job, and requiring them to undertake job seeking activities. And provided they have worked for at least a quarter. Only as long as their
- aliceryhl 7y ago
  Probably not. The three main Scandinavian countries are all working on some sort of wage compensation package that includes SAS and Norwegian in the case of Norway, but they are each targeted at employees who live in the respective countries.

johnnymonster 7y ago

It's a temporary layoff and it's exactly what they should be doing. When they lay off the employees, they are able to collect unemployment benefits from the government. It's a perfect strategy so that the employees will be ok instead of not receiving wages. once things rebound, they can hire them back again and all is good.

nostromo 7y ago
Airlines have large fixed costs and debt to pay. They will not bounce back quickly, or at all. That's why they're asking for a bailout.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Especially the budget carriers, which tend to lease (not own) their planes. They are gonna be hemorrhaging an unfathomable amount of money if they can't get a several month pause on lease payments on their planes.
  - gsnedders 7y ago
    To be fair, the leasing companies may well be more inclined to give them a pause on their payments now than normal. If they repossess the aircraft for lack of payments, what other customers do they have for them in the short term?
    - godzillabrennus 7y ago
      None but they can sell them to another group of PE and recoup the Capital their investors are probably clamoring to reclaim in light of the industries issues. Their LP’s would probably take a hit to unlock the cash and get into something more likely to rebound faster.
      - HenryBemis 7y ago
        Selling won't work. If suddenly "many" airlines start selling, the demand won't be that high, and 1) the prices will plummet and 2) there won't be enough buyers so some airlines will be severely damaged (anyway)(better fewer than all I guess).

dwheeler 7y ago

I expect all Airlines to cancel many of their flights and have to temporarily lay off a lot of their people. It is unlikely a lot of people will be doing travel for mamy weeks, and I suspect the ramp back up to normal will be slow.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

_bxg1 7y ago

*temporarily lay off

klhugo 7y ago

Misleading title, change it, it just spreads panic.

fasteo 7y ago

Slightly off topic. To any Norwegians around HN: Were they in trouble before the corona crisis ? Stock value[1] started a heavy downward trend around Feb 2018, from 171 down to 41 before corona crisis, down to 7 as of today. I am based in Spain, and I am seeing this same trend in some local companies. It seems that coronavirus is the trigger for an existing, latent problem. [1] https://www.reuters.com/companies/NWC.OL/charts https://www.reuters.com/companies/NWC.OL/charts

Jommi 7y ago
Yes they were, cheap longhaul flights stopped being profitable and they were having huge issues. I think low cost longhaul will die after this epidemic.
- kzrdude 7y ago
  Norwegian was pretty hard hit by the 737-MAX crisis
vegardx 7y ago
They have been struggling for quite some time. They got hit quite bad with the grounding of 737 MAX (10% of fleet), and before that they a lot of issues with the 787 Dreamliner (20% of fleet).
- hjnilsson 7y ago
  They also signed a contract pegging fuel prices for the foreseeable future when oil price was $70. Several unlucky breaks in a row, I don’t really think it will be saved. SAS might though.
- tyfon 7y ago
  They've also been "gearing" their business a lot using massive amounts of debt. They were extremely sensitive to changes in income.
mihaaly 7y ago
The Norwegian was in trouble way before the virus. They had to be rescued due to mounting losses. The 737 MAX crisis also hit them hard to which they were exposed more than average. Some links (there are much more): https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/09/16/norwegian-given-time-as-bondholders-accept-rescue-plan/#206813f247f1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/09/16/norwegian... https://qz.com/1688156/why-is-norwegian-air-failing/ https://qz.com/1688156/why-is-norwegian-air-failing/ Because of the troubles I avoided them for transatlantic travel not risking last minute cancellations due to bankruptcy. I doubt that I was alone.

InTheArena 7y ago

Norwegian was near death many many times before this hit. Coronavirus just makes the death inevitable. This is too bad, I really did love their product. Their premium economy seats were well priced, and only on 787, which really helped with jetlag due to the higher humidity and lower pressurization of the CFRP frame. That said, it's going to be hard to see who doesn't go bankrupt with the virus. Airlines are on limited margins at the best of time, and parking half the fleet makes their business model untenable very quickly. The other thing is that unlike almost all of the rest of the world, airports in the US are still publicly owned, and funded by per-passenger fees. A lot of cities are going to have a massive gaping hole in their budgets because of that.

bfieidhbrjr 7y ago
CFRP :-)
- InTheArena 7y ago
  thx. fixed.
mihaaly 7y ago
You meant higher pressurization?
- spaceandshit 7y ago
  Not OP, but yes that would be correct. I think they meant lower altitude, higher pressure. 787s are at around ~6000ft pressure altitude, and most others are at 8000ft. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization
refurb 7y ago
Norwegian has been near death for a couple years.[1] Which is a shame as I had a great experience when I flew and the cost can't be beat ($500 return from SFO to Barcelona). [1]https://www.cntraveler.com/story/norwegian-air-is-taking-last-ditch-measures-to-avoid-bankruptcy https://www.cntraveler.com/story/norwegian-air-is-taking-las...

allovernow 7y ago

I just don't see how these closures aren't going to ripple through the global economy. The market is down 25% YTD after two desperate stimulus measures - $1.5T injection and interest rates cut to zero. What are you going to prop up when world travel and trade is shut down? And domestic regions are locked down too? The kicker is that we had been seeing negative long term indicators for a while before this - inverted yield curve, and long overdue for the approximately 7 year recession cycle, among other indicators. I would love to be convinced otherwise but, regardless of the outcome of the 2019ncov situation, this is shaping up to be a trigger for a global recession, possibly a depression. Modern society cannot sustain itself indoors without radical measures. The vast majority of people probably work at jobs that cannot be performed remotely.

mehrdadn 7y ago
> I just don't see how these closures aren't going to ripple through the global economy. I can see it not rippling if (a) a vaccine comes out in time, or (b) people just give up and work anyway, accepting coronavirus as a risk of life. Unlike sacrificing everything for the sake of not getting coronavirus, that can actually go on indefinitely.
- swiley 7y ago
  It sounds a little too serious for b. If you develop symptoms you may need serious medical attention (intubation) in order to survive regardless of age. Wether or not you develop symptoms you can develop serious organ damage that results in life long chronic health problems (due to damage to lungs, kidneys and testes.) It sounds to me like this virus is in fact much more serious than most people thought even with the hype.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    I didn't want to write it out again but you took the words out of my mouth. All of the worst [pending] peer reviewer papers are gradually being confirmed, it seems. The news has been getting consistently worse for literally two months now and we now have at least a dozen countries on lockdown, and growing.

fulafel 7y ago

I really hope governments will realize what a bad investment bailout money to airlines would be, given their doomed future as one of the main CO2 villain industries. (Not to mention casual air travel's role in spreading epidemics)

dcftoapv 7y ago

Norwegian was struggling financially before COVID 19. This isn't surprising. Norway has one of the world's most robust social support systems. I'm confident that they will deploy it well here.

KitDuncan 7y ago

My fiancé is currently in Orlando and booked her flight back to Germany with Norwegian for March 24. Does that mean the flight is cancelled? She hasn't received any notification from them.

mopsi 7y ago
Yes, the flight isn't going to happen. The EU will close all external borders for 30 days tomorrow at noon. If she is a citizen of Germany and doesn't have any symptoms, she can expect a seat on a repatriation flight. Contact appropriate embassies.

throwaway693659 7y ago

Throwaway for obvious reasons. It's not only about the pilots, crew, administration, etc. A major airline I am working for will lay off pretty much ~90% of its IT departement within 1 month as well.

brnt 7y ago
Since it's a throwaway, which airline is that? Asking for a friend...

totetsu 7y ago

Air New Zealand is also cutting 85%[1] of international flights and looking to cut 30 percent[2] of its workforce. [1]https://simpleflying.com/air-new-zealand-flight-cuts/ https://simpleflying.com/air-new-zealand-flight-cuts/ [2]https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/411892/union-seeks-a-voice-as-air-nz-prepares-to-axe-3500-jobs https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/411892/union-seeks-a-voi...

paulmd 7y ago

airlines are expecting a full travel ban soon (including domestic). Projections have United revenue down 9% this quarter and 95% next quarter (not a typo). https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-makes-airlines-consider-chances-for-a-halt-to-us-flights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-makes-airlines-c...