Norwegian Air Shuttle converted debt to equity, flew on

Norwegian Air Shuttle had built one of Europe's most aggressive long-haul low-cost models, but the pandemic grounded its international network and left a debt load it could not service. In 2020 the company and its Irish operating entities entered examinership, an Irish court-supervised protection, alongside a supplementary reconstruction process in Norway — the two running in parallel to cover the group's structure.

The centrepiece was a restructuring proposal approved by creditors: most unsecured and other debt was written down or converted into shares and convertible loans, and the company raised up to NOK6 billion of new capital. On 26 May 2021 the so-called Effective Date arrived: the share capital increases were registered, the examinership and reconstruction concluded, and Norwegian formally emerged from insolvency protection.

The result was a materially lighter company. Per the company's own market announcement, total debt had fallen by roughly NOK63-65 billion compared with end-2019, and the airline restarted as a focused short-haul carrier, dropping the intercontinental ambitions that had helped load it with leases and debt.

For a carrier that had been Europe's fourth-largest budget group by traffic before the crisis, the survival route was not preservation of the old business plan but of the brand and landing slots, repriced for a world without subsidised long-haul growth.

Total debt down about NOK63-65B from end-2019; NOK6B raised; stock relisted and flying again by 2021

Converting debt to equity removed leases and loans that no post-COVID revenue could ever repay

Running examinership and reconstruction in parallel respected both Irish operating law and Norwegian parent law

The NOK6B capital raise gave real cash, not just paper relief, funding the relaunch

Dropping long-haul refocused the airline on the short-haul market it still owned

A cross-border restructuring that swaps debt for equity and drops failed units lets an airline keep its brand instead of liquidating

Norwegian relisted and returned to profit by the fourth quarter of 2021, and rebuilt a profitable short-haul operation within the Nordics and Europe. Its survival is often contrasted with airlines that liquidated, showing that a cross-border debt swap can save a flag brand where a conventional turnaround cannot.