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Norwegian airline’s customers may be able to purchase flight tickets with bitcoin
Feb 28, 2020
The third largest low-cost airline in Europe and the largest airline in Scandinavia will start accepting payments for flight tickets in crypto as soon as this spring. Norwegian Air, one of the biggest airlines in Europe is about to transform the aviation industry in 2020 by allowing its customers to purchase flight tickets with digital currency.
Founded in 1993, Norwegian Air is the largest airline in Scandinavia and operates around 500 routes to more than 150 destinations worldwide. It serves both domestic flights within Scandinavia and international flights to places all across Europe and North Africa, as well as the Americas. Last October, the company announced the best quarterly result with a pre-tax profit of about $215 million USD.
The airline will collaborate with Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX) – a Norwegian crypto exchange and payment platform launched in 2019. The crypto exchange was supported by the oldest bank in Norway that has invested more than half a million US dollars in exchange for 16.3 percent of its ownership.
The platform desires to bring new solutions to aviation industry and facilitate the payment infrastructure for airlines. The crypto exchange system confirmed that the development of the necessary infrastructure for tickets reservation is already finished. “Everything is ready to go from our side,” said the NBX’s CEO in the interview.
Crypto-airline collab may widespread advanced solutions this spring. The project will be likely rolled out as early as next month but it is still unclear which digital currencies apart from Bitcoin will be accepted. Although Bitcoin is the best-known digital currency, there is a possibility that the list of supported cryptocurrencies will be broader.
We are happy that following such a business giant as Starbucks that is planning to allow its customers to settle payments in cryptocurrency, such a well-known company as Norwegian Air will provide new opportunities for crypto-lovers in aviation industry. Hopefully, the crypto-airline collab has a strong risk management system and will handle all challenges that may arise taking into account the volatility in the digital currency market.
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