Bjørn Kjos, the man who built Norwegian Air from a regional brand to an international but financially-weak powerhouse, wants to try again. Two years after losing his place at the top of Norwegian and a year after watching its financial collapse, he’s starting over with Norse Atlantic Airways.
Flights are projected to start in December, using a dozen 787s leased from…wait for it…Norwegian. Kjos is sharing the reins of the new company with two other Bjørns, Bjørn Tore Larsen and Bjørn Kise. Larsen told Norwegian press recently that “I have thought for a long time that it is important to have a low-cost player across the Atlantic, and it was a bit in the cards that Norwegian should not continue.”
But continue Norwegian’s pattern appears to be exactly what Norse intends to do, although it has not yet announced its schedules or network. But it does plan to operate between European hubs and the U.S., hoping, when travel picks up, to fill the niche abandoned by Norwegian. Whether it has sufficient capital to survive where Norwegian didn’t is an unanswered question.
But it is clear that hope is Bjørn again.
