Norwegian Air will more than double its existing operations from July 1, restarting 76 routes to and from Scandinavia and expanding its fleet from eight to 20 aircraft.
Budget carrier Norwegian will also resume a small number of flights from the UK, operating from London Gatwick and Edinburgh to Oslo and Copenhagen.
Norwegian has been operating only on domestic routes in Norway since April, using 100 pilots and 200 cabin crew.
But it will bring back an additional 200 pilots and 400 cabin crew from the start of July as 12 additional aircraft go into operation across Scandinavia flying to Spain, Greece and major cities around Europe.
Norwegian Air also announced the conversion of additional debt to equity this week, successfully writing off some “overdue payables”, converting part of a $15 million bond to shares and reaching a deal with an aircraft lessor to convert an additional $16.6 million to equity.
The company wrote off almost $65 million in debt in total by issuing an additional 149 million shares valued at NOK4.25 ($0.44) each.
This was four times the share value Norwegian secured in an equity issue last month.
The conversion formed part of a continuing debt-restructuring programme after the carrier secured NOK3 billion ($310 million) in loans guaranteed by the Norwegian government in May and NOK400 million ($42 million) from the sale of 400 million shares.
Norwegian’s financial restructuring has wiped out existing shareholders and left the carrier in the hands of aircraft leasing companies and bondholding financial institutions.
The carrier has said most of its fleet will remain grounded for at least a year.