Norwegian Air Says Brexit Not Affecting Bookings

Norwegian Air Shuttle, Europe's third-largest low-cost airline by passenger numbers, said Britain's decision to leave the European Union and the economic uncertainty associated with it was not having any impact on its bookings.

"We haven't seen anything from it so far," chief executive Bjørn Kjos told Reuters. "Probably the reason is we fly a lot of leisure passengers."

Norwegian has a large base at London's Gatwick Airport, flying to destinations across Europe and to the United States.

The vote for Brexit in June prompted the pound to slump against the dollar and economists to warn of recession, higher unemployment and falling consumer confidence in Britain.

Both British Airways-owner IAG and easyJet issued profit warnings shortly after the UK referendum result and IATA forecast that British air passenger numbers could drop by 3-5 percent by 2020.

But three weeks after the vote and Kjos said Norwegian was not seeing a fall in bookings and, in fact, was seeing a rise in Americans visiting London due to the currency moves.

The weaker pound has also not yet dampened British demand for summer travel to Europe and the United States.

"So far we haven't seen it. The simple fact is that most people have already purchased their summer vacation so it might happen next year that it will be lower demand from UK side," he said.