Norwegian Air Shuttle has signed an agreement for the sale of 100 percent of its Argentinian subsidiary, Norwegian Air Argentina (NAA), to JetSMART Airlines.
JetSMART will assume the NAA operation immediately and continue all scheduled flights from Aeroparque airport. The integration process will take several months, during this period the Norwegian brand will be phased out in the domestic Argentinian network.
Over the next six months, the three Boeing 737s, currently operated by NAA, will be replaced by JetSMART’s Airbus A320 aircraft. The three Boeing 737s will return to service for Norwegian in Europe.
NAA only operates domestic flights within Argentina, so the new agreement will not affect Norwegian’s long-haul flights between London and Buenos Aires. These are operated by the British subsidiary, Norwegian Air UK.
We’re taking necessary steps to return to profitability.
Attaining satisfactory profitability for a relatively small domestic operation has proved difficult to achieve, given the overall situation in the country.
We believe that the agreement we have signed today with JetSMART secures a significant part of what we have built over these two years; continuity of the network and opportunities.
CEO and CFO of Norwegian, Geir Karlsen
Norwegian’s employees in NAA will be employed by JetSMART, except for the company’s Argentina-based call centre staff. They will continue as Norwegian employees, providing customer services to JetSMART’s domestic Argentina operation and to our customers on our long-haul operation between Europe and South America.
We are very excited about the opportunity to combine Norwegian Argentina with our current JetSMART operations. JetSMART has a long-term commitment to Argentina as well as of our vision of becoming the leading ultra low-cost airline in South America.
Estuardo Ortiz, CEO of JetSMART
NAA received its Air Operator’s Certificate in January 2018 and started operations on 16th October that year. The company currently operates a fleet of three Boeing 737-800s, with twenty daily flights, across eight routes, between Buenos Aires’ Aeroparque airport to Bariloche, Córdoba, Iguazú, Jujuy, Mendoza, Neuquén, Salta and Ushuaia. So far, NAA has carried 982,000 passengers.