Interview of Daniel Skjeldam (Director Network and Revenue of Norwegian)

Do you believe Norwegian is protected on its own Scandinavian market against other LCCs competitors?
Yes, definitely. The reason is simple, it is because, on a lot of routes, 70% of the market is originated in Norway, Sweden or Denmark. That’s why, with this outbound, domestic carriers will always have the strongest positions. Our customers know our brand and check prices of our company with the ones of our competitors. If we are competitive, we will sell the ticket; if they are competitive, they will sell it.

Now that Norwegian and FlyNordic are merged, what will be the main changes? What about the consolidation of the Scandinavian market?
By acquiring FlyNordic, we get an interesting size to develop in the future. We can use FlyNordic fleet, staff, routes and of course its brands. This acquisition of FlyNordic gives us a lot of synergies which will be used for our growth. It is very hard to say if there will be other consolidations in the Scandinavian market as the sector is really fast moving.

How do you feel about the “price war” launched by Ryanair?
It doesn’t affect us at all. We are competing on quite a few routes, but the price difference must be very high to see our customers changing their flying habits with us. We actually see a boost in the routes on which we are competing with them, and not a decline. It attracts customers to these destinations because they spend more money on marketing. Our customers always check first if the home base carrier doesn’t have a flight on this route, and they compare the prices. If our competitors spend money on marketing, it also affects other routes in a good way.