THE CONVERSATION
with Bjørn Kjos CEO, Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA
A former Norwegian fi ghter pilot invested in a small airline, offered to be interim Chair until a better one was found, and 14 years on he and his company have become something of a legend. Gillian Upton speaks to Bjørn Kjos
PROFILE
Bjørn Kjos is 68 years old and has been the CEO of Norwegian Air Shuttle since 2002, as well as a major shareholder. Aviation has been a central part of Bjørn’s life and fl ying a great interest since he was a child. After two years of pilot training in
Mississippi and Arizona he became a fi ghter pilot in the 334 squadron of the Norwegian Royal Air Force, guarding the Norwegian airspace against Soviet intruders between 1969 and 1975. After leaving the air force Bjørn studied
law and is a graduate from the University of Oslo. He has 20 years of legal practise and in 1993 he was granted the right of audience in the Supreme Court. At the same time he became one of
the founding partners and the chairman of Norwegian Air Shuttle who took over the remains of the bankrupt Busy Bee. Norwegian started fl ights on the west
coast of Norway with Fokker 50s in co-operation with Braathens. In 2002, SAS bought Braathens and terminated Norwegian’s west coast operation. In order to save Norwegian and its
employees, the airline turned into a complete Boeing 737 operation and went into head-to-head competition with SAS on domestic routes in Norway. In 2009 Bjørn won Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Norway. In his spare time he sails, skis and hunts and enjoys extreme sports. He is also a keen writer and in 2006 published the spy thriller The Murmansk Affair and is currently writing a book about the history of Norwegian Air Shuttle. Bjørn is married to Gerd Helene Kjos,
a former air stewerdess, and they have two daughters and one son. One of their daughters is a pilot at Norwegian.
B 30 THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
jørn Kjos is something of a hero in Norway. In “trying to help some friends from the airforce” he saved the jobs of 130 employees of the then doomed
airline Norwegian Air Shuttle in 2002 and has gone on to create Europe’s third largest low-cost carrier. It is also Scandinavia’s second largest airline and has a listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Those 130 employees have swelled to 3,500, the
fleet to some 81 aircraft with an average age of only 4.6 years, and some 500 daily flights. Last year the airline carried 20 million passengers, making it the ninth largest airline in Europe in terms of passenger numbers. To say it’s been a dramatic turnaround at Norwegian is a major understatement. The carrier has one of the largest aircraft order books in the world, including 57 Boeing 737-800s,
100 Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 100 Airbus A320 neos. The new Boeing 737 MAX 8, when it arrives in 2017, will save the airline £100million in fuel costs. Boeing says the 737 MAX family of aircraft will reduce fuel burn and CO2
over today’s most fuel-efficient single-aisle aircraft. “Chinese, Middle Eastern and Norwegian carriers
have bought all the new aircraft and will have the lowest costs,” asserts Bjørn Kjos. The success of Norwegian means that today, Bjørn
Kjos is feted at every turn. A sought-after speaker on entrepreneurship and executive leadership, the phrase 'legend in his lifetime' may sound hackneyed but it was one used by the Danish Ambassador to London, Kim Traavik, at the recent Innovation Norway event when introducing the Norwegian CEO as the keynote speaker.
emissions by an additional 13 per cent
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92