Flying high, on the ground

Most people think that an airline only employs pilots and cabin crew, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.  

 – There are so many departments here at the HQ at Fornebu, says Adela, who herself works as an Airline Optimization Analyst. You have communications, marketing, tech, operations, finance, product department – to name a few. In the commercial department alone there is a vast variety of functions, from exploring potential routes to deciding prices and fleet strategy. 

– We also have offices in Barcelona, Riga, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm, adds Crew Resource and Pairing Analyst Anton. With people from as diverse countries as Serbia, Brazil, India and the US – there really is an international group of people here. That’s why the company language is English, despite our name. 

The colleagues at Norwegian are also very diverse when it comes to their background, with some employees who came to the company directly from the old airport at Fornebu, several who have studied economics, a fair number who have an engineering background and a few who have majored in physics. But Anton’s favorite background is something completely different.  

– I just love the fact that I have a colleague in operations who is a former ballet dancer. All these different perspectives help us create better products, and it also makes for a much more interesting working environment.  

Decisions based on data 

Both Anton and Adela work with analysis, which is a crucial element for the operations and decision making at Norwegian.  

– My job is to lay out the sequence of our upcoming flights, says Anton, looking at our flights schedules and making sure we have the right amount of flight deck and cabin crew. It allows us to ensure our employees get home at suitable hours and not having too long layovers. I also take part in forecasting the impact of new routes from a crew operational perspective – from extracting figures on how many crew are required to operate our flights to if we should consider adapting our network and base structure. 

– I’m responsible for using data to analyze and find business insights, says Adela, which is generally used by top management to decide on strategies going forward. This involves anything from looking at our competitors progress to suggesting new times for individual flights in our schedule. I rely on accurate data to be able to make good predictions. 

The analyses Adela and Anton produce are vital for the operational robustness of Norwegian, looking at anything from flying times to block times at airports.  

– We’re doing something right, says Adela, seeing that Norwegian had the best “on-time-performance” in Europe in October. 

Exploring the unknown 

For a person working with analysis, there’s something to be said about finding interesting patterns.  

– I like changes, says Anton, and what makes the job I have so interesting is the variety week-by-week. There are for example big seasonal changes at an airline, not only when it comes to workload but also when it comes to destinations. Peak days in summer are naturally more challenging than weekdays in the low season, and I like the change of pace. For me, being part of the decision in what we fly, makes me proud to say that I’m a “Norwegian”. 

This drive for change is at the heart of Norwegian, which can be seen on the tail of every plane.  

– Every plane has the portrait of a famous achiever on the tail, says Adela, like the Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, Christopher Columbus and the British musician Freddie Mercury.  

What they have in common is the drive to challenge the status quo, do something new and explore the unknown.  

– That’s a spirit that is engrained in our culture, adds Adela. We are pioneers.  

– Proof is that we are always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint, adds Anton. Recently we embarked on a project where we used sustainable aviation fuel equivalent to 100 flights between Aalborg and Copenhagen. We are continually renewing our fleet with the much more fuel-efficient 737 MAX, which has already become the dominant aircraft type at our Copenhagen base. It’s easy to thrive in such an environment, at least if you like development and you are willing to put in an effort for change.  

Did you know that our technical operations run day and night, and we are most active while you sleep? Our dedicated technical team, the backbone of our operations, working 24/7 to ensure each aircraft is in optimal condition.