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E24 NÆRINGSLIV
E24 Næringsliv is a Norwegian, online business newspaper launched on 18 April 2006. In the course of the first week of operations it became the largest business web site in Norway. In week 46, 2008, it had 575,000 unique users per week.
Photo of a sunset over Chicago's O'Hare airport with backlit plane tails
Future
Carl-Johan Karlsson

7 Ways The Pandemic May Change The Airline Industry For Good

Will flying be greener? More comfortable? Less frequent? As the world eyes a post-COVID reality, we look at ways the airline industry has been changing through a pandemic that has devastated air travel.

It's hard to overstate the damage the pandemic has had on the airline industry, with global revenues dropping by 40% in 2020 and dozens of airlines around the world filing for bankruptcy. One moment last year when the gravity became particularly apparent was when Asian carriers (in countries with low COVID-19 rates) began offering "flights to nowhere" — starting and ending at the same airport as a way to earn some cash from would-be travelers who missed the in-flight experience.

More than a year later today, experts believe that air traffic won't return to normal levels until 2024.

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Sweden's Troll A oil platform
blog

Why Norway Won't Lose Its Cool Over Falling Oil Prices

OSLO — Global oil prices are falling again this week, having dipped below $30 for the first time in 13 years. In oil-dependent economies from Russia to Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, the crisis continues to spark panic and weigh on national budget deficits and unemployment rates.


And yet another major oil producer, Norway, is looking remarkably calm, reports E24 Naeringliv, a top Norwegian business website. "You cannot generalize," says Joachim Bernhardsen, economist at Scandinavian bank Nordea Markets, told to E24 Naeringliv. "Most Norwegians do not have to worry about money. Last year, housing in Oslo rose 10% in value. The country's financial growth (excluding oil sector) is estimated at 2% this year."

Bernhardsen also noted that even though there the national unemployment rate has spiked recently, it remains below 5%. No reason, in other words, for Norway to panic in the face of the current downturn in oil prices.

Though oil and gas account for some 20% of its economic output, Norway has been shielded by the full impact of the dropping energy prices by a more stable and diversified economy than other oil producers, as well as the falling value of its currency, the krone, in relation to the dollar. But as French business daily Les Echosnotes that the biggest buffer against a crisis is Norway's gigantic oil fund and relatively small population of five million.

The Norwegian sovereign fund, which is value around the equivalent of 730 billion euros, is meant to mostly be money set aside for future generations. And for now at least, no one is ready to dip their hands deeper into that fund.