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Norwegian airline Norwegian's CEO and President Bjørn Kjos sees no need for additional share capital within the next 12-18 months.

He said this at the presentation of the first quarter of 2019, according to Infront TDN Direkt.

The company is also guiding for cost savings of 2 billion Norwegian kroner in 2019, but also warns that it could be more than that.

”"On a nominal basis, we would like to see closer to 3 billion as a result of reduced capex," said CFO Geir Karlsen.

”"I didn't hear that," replied CEO Bjørn Kjos.

Norwegian N"We have been working for a period to postpone orders for aircraft in order to achieve moderate growth on short haul routes and are now satisfied with the execution of the order book," continued CFO Geir Karlsen.

”"We currently feel we are done with the restructuring of the order book and do not see any changes in that regard in the short term. We expect continued deliveries of 16 Max aircraft in 2019, and then we will see how the situation develops and how many planes we get this year," he said.

The model in question, the Boeing 737 Max 8, is currently out of service after two accidents in a short period of time.

Operating profit in the reported quarter was a loss of 1,459 million Norwegian kroner. Infront Data's average estimate with four respondents pointed to a loss of 1,371 million. Net sales amounted to 7,992 million Norwegian kroner, compared to the expected 8,113 million.

The result was affected by one-time items of NOK 804 million in the quarter, compared to the average estimate of NOK 896 million.

Norwegian expects ASK growth of 5-10 percent for 2019. Previously, Norwegian expected ASK growth of 9 percent in 2019.

The unit cost excluding fuel is expected to be SEK 0.30 in 2019. Including fuel, the corresponding figure is expected to be SEK 0.42.

The updated guidance includes negative impacts of up to NOK 500 million from the problems with the Boeing 737 Max 8.

Norwegian's shares rose just over 3 percent in early trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Source: Nyhetsbyrån Direkt