Norwegian Air Shuttle’s (Norwegian Long Haul) (Norwegian.com) (Oslo) traffic is exploding. The fast-growing carrier reported its traffic grew by 24 percent in January 2014 to over 1.5 million passengers. The company issued this statement:

Norwegian carried more than 1.5 million passengers in January 2014, an increase of 24 percent compared to January last year. The load factor increased despite major capacity growth.

In January, 1,530,441 passengers flew with Norwegian. This is an increase of 24 percent compared to January 2013. The total passenger traffic (RPK) increased by 50 percent and the total capacity (ASK) increased by 45 percent this month. The load factor was 74.8 percent in January, up 2.6 percentage points.

“I’m very pleased that we in a low season month like January increase the load factor, even with major capacity growth. The fact that 1.5 million passengers chose to fly with us prove that low fares and new, comfortable aircraft are important, “said CEO Bjørn Kjos.

Norwegian operated 99.6 percent of its scheduled flights in January, whereof 78.3 percent departed on time. The on-time performance is affected by challenging weather conditions in Scandinavia.

In January, Norwegian took delivery of two brand new Boeing 737-800 aircraft. A total of 15 such aircraft will be delivered in 2014 in addition to four 787 Dreamliners. Norwegian’s fleet is one of Europe’s newest and most environmentally friendly.

Copyright Photo: Paul Denton/AirlinersGallery.com. Boeing 737-8JP LN-NOT (msn 37816) with Piet Hein on the tail departs for Oslo at Geneva.

Norwegian: