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(Adds detail about leasing, Dreamliners, hedging)
By Tim Hepher
PARIS, April 9 (Reuters) - Budget airline Norwegian Air has been approached by several rival airlines aboutpossible partnerships but is keen to follow an independentstrategy, Chief Executive Bjoern Kjos said on Thursday.
Norwegian has expanded rapidly in recent years to becomeEurope's third-biggest low cost carrier after Ryanair and easyJet but falling margins and a net loss last yearraised doubts about its strategy.
"We have been approached by most of the airlines in Europethat want to work together with Norwegian," Kjos told Reuters."We have been asked about all sorts of arrangements".
Kjos declined to comment on reports that Norwegian had heldtalks with Ryanair during a recent pilot strike, but when askedif he held concrete talks with other airlines, he said: "No, weprefer to stay alone and go on with our own business model."
Flying with just under 100 aircraft, Norwegian has over 200jets on order and plans to lease out many of them through a newDublin-based subsidiary, a unique step for a budget carrier.
Although it is not scheduled to receive its first AirbusA320neo jets until next year, Kjos said the first leasingagreement may be just weeks away.
"We assume that in the next few months we will start leasingout the first (A320neo) aircraft," Kjos said on the sidelines ofan Economist aerospace conference in Paris.
"We are in final discussions with lessees so it will behighly likely before the summer."
He added that the firm's long haul business, beset byaircraft breakdowns at the start, was doing well, with itsBoeing 787 Dreamliners offering the same rate ofreliability as its 737 narrow body aircraft.
In a first for Europe's budget airlines, Norwegian flieslong-haul routes from Britain and the Nordics to North Americaand Asia, and plans new routes to South America and SouthAfrica.
Falling jet fuel price could help Norwegian this year butKjos said he was not keen on hedging fuel after the firmsuffered big hedging losses last year after oil prices fell.
"We have hedged very little fuel and only at a low price,"Kjos said. "You might see (crude) prices up to $70 but I thinkthey will swing between $50 and $70 in the future, so what isthe benefit of hedging?" (Writing by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Mark Potter)
