The new Norwegian start-up carrier spearheaded by businessman Erik Gunnar Braathen has been given the name Flyr (Norway) (Oslo Gardermoen) and has a website up and running, flyr.no, as it prepares to do battle to secure a wedge of the Nordic market.
The nascent airline is working towards commencing flight operations in the first half of 2021. Since news broke on October 6 that the former Braathens SAFE chief executive and his team of ex-Norwegian directors were creating a start-up, more than 30 employees have been hired so far and the company has confirmed it will be based at Oslo Gardermoen with a focus on Norway’s domestic market.
“For customers, we must appear with an attractive product, and then having a low cost will be absolutely crucial,” Braathen told the business daily Finansavisen, adding that as a new, debt-free airline Flyr has been flooded with inquiries from lessors.
Braathen revealed in November that he was in dialogue with both Airbus and Boeing, was looking at up to five A320 Family or B737 aircraft, and had submitted an application for an Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) to the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority (Luftfartstilsynet). The company will initially hire exclusively Norwegian personnel.
Flyr has since appointed Tonje Wikstrøm Frislid as its chief executive. She comes from a position as operations director of Oslo-based bus company Unibuss, but previous to that she was vice president for crew management at Norwegian. She had a number of roles at the now-stricken low-cost carrier over a period of eleven years, from 2007 to 2018.
The key to Flyr’s success, she said, will be a more sustainable business model, explaining: “We must all fly less in the years ahead to take care of the environment. That is exactly why we are building a company that is not dependent on getting more and more people to fly more and more to achieve profitability.” Flyr will base its sales on a purely digital product based on the needs of its passengers, she added.
She elaborated to E24 Næringsliv: “I really applaud Norwegian and my former colleagues, but our model is different. We have an ambition to fly relatively few planes in Norway and on some international routes. We will have a simpler model and we will be where the public wants to fly without constantly being dependent on growth. And there will be demand and there will be a need to fly after this pandemic.”
The website elucidates that the choice of name mirrors the credo of the airline: “The name reflects the simplicity of the company and the product we are building. We start Flyr with the goal of providing the simplest flight based on the needs of the passengers. The choice of name can challenge traditional rules and expectations, and in the same way we will be a challenger in aviation. Aircraft are what we do best and the only thing we have to do.”
