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* Cuts are part of Norwegian's restructuring
* Shareholders approve share, bond issue
* Norwegian shares slip, but rival SAS stock climbs
(Adds shareholder vote, details)
By Victoria Klesty and Terje Solsvik
OSLO, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Budget airline Norwegian Air
is ending flights from Copenhagen and Stockholm to the
United States and Thailand due to weak demand and technical
problems affecting the engines on its Boeing 787
Dreamliners, it said on Wednesday.
Flights between Oslo and the United States would continue,
while routes between Norway and Thailand were under review, it
said, the latest initiative to cut costs and restore profits
after rapid expansion left the carrier weighed down by debt.
"Scandinavia isn't big enough to maintain intercontinental
flights from Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen," Senior Vice
President Commercial Matthew Wood said in a statement.
Norwegian's shares were down 2.2% at 1310 GMT, although
shares in Nordic rival SAS, which has direct flights
from Stockholm and Copenhagen to the United States, rose 2.7%.
Norwegian has shaken up the transatlantic travel market with
low fares, challenging major transatlantic carriers such as
British Airways. But its profitability has suffered.
To stem losses, Norwegian has cut unprofitable routes,
saying last month it would reduce capacity by 10% next year, the
first plan to shrink in its near two-decade history.
Shareholders approved on Wednesday a share and bond issue,
announced last month, to raise $273 million in cash.
Norwegian plans to use the extra cash to help cover costs of
resulting from the grounding of its short-haul fleet of Boeing
MAX aircraft and issues with engines on its long-haul Boeing 787
Dreamliners.
Britain's Rolls-Royce said in September it would take
longer than expected to fix problems with the Trent 1000 engine
that were caused by poor durability of turbine blade components.
"We have for a time been struggling with the Rolls-Royce
engines on our long-distance aircraft, which means we need to
keep more planes on the ground. This affects our route
schedule," Norwegian's Wood said.
The airline said it would increase the frequency of flights
from European cities to U.S. destinations but did not give
details.
Norwegian said on Nov. 12 it was launching non-stop flights
from Chicago to Rome and Paris and from Denver to Rome. It now
offers 50 routes between Europe and the United States.
($1 = 9.1609 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Victoria Klesty; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jan
Harvey)
