Norwegian Air Shuttle will seek compensation from Boeing over the MAX grounding, CEO Bjorn Kjos said.
Nations and regions around the world have been grounding the 737 MAX, following the March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 near Addis Ababa, killing all 157 on board. The Ethiopian MAX crash came just over four months after a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 crashed off the Indonesian coast Oct. 29, 2018.
The US FAA was the latest to announce it was grounding the narrowbody March 13 with immediate effect, following the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) March 12 decision to suspend MAX operations in the region.
In a video posted on Twitter March 13, Kjos said only a small part of Norwegian’s operation was affected—about 1% of seat capacity. But he added: “It is quite obvious that we will not take the cost related to the new aircraft that we have to park temporarily. We will send this bill to those who produce this aircraft.”
“What happens next is in the hands of European aviation authorities, but we hope and expect that our MAXs will be airborne soon,” Kjos added.
Norwegian said March 13 it would temporarily deploy a Boeing 787-9 on US flights from Dublin as part of efforts to minimize disruption by reallocating other aircraft, re-booking passengers and combining flights.
“Customers booked on affected transatlantic routes to and from Ireland serviced by the 737 MAX will be rebooked onto flights using the 787-9, which has a 338-seat configuration. The 787 Dreamliner, registered G-CKWF with Charles Lindbergh on the aircraft tail, will operate the Dublin-New York Stewart (SWF) route daily,” the LCC said.
Source:ATW
