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Welcome to the The Atlantic Update for Wednesday 30 January 2019, our weekly update on transatlantic travel from Europe to North America.
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Norwegian’s Dash For Cash
Norwegian announced yesterday that it is to raise approximately £270m from its shareholders through a rights issue.
Norwegian’s co-founders and major shareholders Bjørn Kjos and Bjørn Halvor Kise have committed to support the rights issue.
Norwegian has outlined a number of measures to improve its financial performance, namely divesting, and postponing new deliveries, of aircraft and reshaping its route network.
Whilst the existing Gatwick long-haul network is likely to be spared any drastic cuts, it’s hard to envisage Norwegian fulfilling its previous ambition to launch Airbus A321 Long Range operated routes from London Gatwick to Philadelphia, Detroit and Minneapolis.
Norwegian is to bring forward its financial results announcement to next Thursday 7 February. Preliminary, and presumably unaudited, results indicate a loss for the year of nearly £200m before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. At the end of 2018, Norwegian had cash, and cash equivalents, of £170m.
Interestingly, whilst Norwegian would not entertain the two informal bids from IAG, short of formally putting itself up for sale, it has indicated a willingness to receive offers from other parties.
US & Canada Severe Weather
Severe weather conditions continue across parts of the United States and Canada.
Travel waivers are in place for a number of regions.
American Airlines and BA have two in place. For the North East of the US and Canada, passengers due to travel up to Wednesday 30 January can rebook up to Saturday 2 February. For Chicago, where the forecast today is extremely low temperatures of -30 degrees celsius, passengers due to travel up to Thursday 31 January can rebook up to Sunday 3 February.
Delta and Virgin Atlantic also have a travel waiver in place for passengers due to travel via Atlanta. Passengers due to travel up to Wednesday 30 January can rebook up to Saturday 2 February.
Also of note this week:
Massport which operates Boston Logan International plans to upgrade the airport’s terminals and improve accessibility (Boston Globe)
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The Atlantic Update is published every Wednesday at 06:00 GMT. If you have any comments, suggestions or tips then please drop us a line at mail [@] londonairtravel.com
