Norwegian sells fistful of A320neos

By November 5, 2018 January 16th, 2020 General News

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA has agreed the sale of five Airbus A320neo aircraft to an undisclosed buyer.

The airline’s leasing arm subsidiary, Arctic Aviation Assets, currently has the aircraft out on lease and so is not operating them. Delivery to the as yet unnamed buyer will take place during the fourth quarter of this year, it said. No sale price was revealed.

The transaction is expected to increase the carrier’s liquidity by US$62 million after repayment of debt and have a positive equity effect, it added.

Asian low-cost carrier HK Express was reportedly the only customer of the subsidiary, which was set up to lease out a sizeable number of the airline’s new aircraft it has on order and help ease its debt burden.

Norwegian continues to expand its long-haul offerings regardless, however, last week starting up a new twice-weekly non-stop service to Tampa Bay, Florida in the US from London Gatwick. It has also increased its winter services to other Florida destinations from London Gatwick, including a daily service to Fort Lauderdale and five weekly flights to Orlando, as well as its flights to Las Vegas and Boston.

It also recently upgraded its flights to Buenos Aires in Argentina to a daily service from London Gatwick, up from its original four flights per week, and adding to its momentum in the Latin American country where it is also now underway with domestic flights.

All Norwegian’s long-haul flights from London Gatwick are operated by new Boeing 787 Dreamliners in a two-class configuration.