Norwegian Pilot Association leader says ‘it will get worse’

The Airline NorwegianIllustrasjon.The airline Norwegian.Photo. Norway Today Media

The leader of the Norwegian Pilot Association believes the pilot problem will happen again for Norwegian Airline after the weekend’s many cancelled flights.

 

‘When Norwegian say that they are having trouble recruiting new pilots, there is only one thing to say about it; it will get worse for the company. Job hunting pilots will focus on work where they are permanent employees of the company for whom they work. Norwegian doesn’t offer this possibility. That is why work in that company, for many pilots, has passed its ‘sell by’ date today, and will do in the future’, said Petter Førde to Aftenposten newspaper.

 –

The weekend delays led to problems for a large number of passengers. Among other things, two music corps (school musical brass bands) had to cancel trips they had been looking forward to for a long time. On Monday evening, 19 departures were cancelled within a short period of time.

 –

Highly competitive

 Managing Director of Norwegian Air Resources, Bjørn Erik Barman Jenssen, answered Førde’s prediction in an email, saying ‘the market is tough, with a lot of competition. We recruited over 500 pilots in 2016, and will recruit more than 600 this year. We’ve already recruited 400 pilots this year, so these statements aren’t correct at all.’

99.7%

 ‘Norwegian achieved 99.7% of scheduled flights in May, 99.4% in April, and 99.5% in March,’ said Astrid Mannion-Gibson, Norwegian’s Press Agent, to Dagsavisen newspaper.

 –

SAS Airline achieved 98.7% of its 308,439 flights last year, according to planned air schedules, according to Information Manager, Knut Morten Johansen.

 –

Cancellations

Avinor explained that very few of the 25.8 million passengers who travelled through Oslo’s main Gardermoen Airport last year were affected by cancellations.

 –

‘To put things in perspective, the regularity of Oslo airport departures was at 99.3% last year, so it was a very small proportion of flights that were cancelled’, said Communications Manager, Kristian Løksa.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today