This month Airline Business has been to Oslo to meet Norwegian chief executive Bjorn Kjos. These are busy times for Norwegian. The fast-growing budget carrier has no sooner finished restructuring its Swedish operations, than it is embarking on an expansion at Copenhagen to take advantage of the demise of Danish budget operator Sterling. Its urgent need for capacity to operate the new routes pushed back plans to accelerate the withdrawal of the MD-80s it inherited through the acquisition of FlyNordic last year. As part of restructuring efforts, Norwegian was in the process of returning these aircraft to the lessors ahead of the original late 2009 return date. But having returned half this fleet, it will retain four of these until September next year.
You can read the full interview in our forthcoming January issue. Although it is only our first issue of the year, I will already bet there won't be a better backdrop for photos in 2009. The omens were not great when we arrived at Norwegian's office at Oslo's old airport at Fornebu, offices which probably aren't going to win any design awards. Is there anywhere that might make quite a nice backdrop for pictures we asked? Well we have the sea just a couple of minutes drive from here says Kjos. At a stretch, a ten minute drive from our offices might get us as far as the big DIY Superstore. But just two minutes away from Norwegian's offices we found, well, see for yourself with a quick taster...
Of course we were helped by the layer of snow and the setting sun (all part of the plan our photographer Tom assures me!), but it sets the bar high for the year to come. So can anyone do better? Welcome to the inaugural award for the most stunning backdrop within a two minute drive of an airline's office...
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