Bjørn Kjos (born 18 July 1946) is a Norwegian

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators because they a ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

, and

business magnate A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

. He is best known as the founder and CEO of

Norwegian Air Shuttle Norwegian Air Shuttle Aksjeselskap, ASA, trading as Norwegian, is a Norway, Norwegian Low-cost carrier, low-cost airline and Scandinavia's second-largest airline, behind Scandinavian Airlines. It is the fourth largest low-cost carrier in Europe ...

, briefly Scandinavia's largest airline, and Europe's third largest

low-cost airline A low-cost carrier (LCC) or low-cost airline, also called a budget, or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs. It sacrifices certain traditional airline luxuries for cheaper fa ...

Early life and education

Kjos was born and grew up in Sokna in Ringerike. In 1953, his father Ola started the airline Norsk Skogbruksfly, and bought a

Piper Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is P ...

. After serving as a

paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...

with the Norwegian Army, Kjos enrolled at the Norwegian Air Force Academy. He became a trained pilot in the

Royal Norwegian Air Force The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) () is the air force of Norway. It was established as a separate arm of the Norwegian Armed Forces on 10 November 1944. The RNoAF's peacetime establishment is approximately 2,430 employees (officers, enlisted ...

during two years of training in

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

and

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

in the United States, and flew

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic interceptor. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the " Century Series" of fighter aircraft for the United States Air Force (USAF), it was developed into an ...

and

Northrop F-5 The Northrop F-5 is a family of supersonic light fighter aircraft initially designed as a privately funded project in the late 1950s by Northrop Corporation. There are two main models: the original F-5A and F-5B Freedom Fighter variants, and th ...

from 1969 to 1975. Upon returning to Norway he applied for work at the

Scandinavian Airlines System The Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), commonly known as Scandinavian Airlines, is the Flag carrier, national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It is part of SAS Group and is headquartered in Solna Municipality, Solna, Sweden. Including ...

. Since they did not need any new pilots, Kjos started studying law at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

. From 1983 to 2002, he worked as a lawyer, and was also for a period a judge in Moss District Court. Since 1993 he has access to work with

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

cases.

Career

In 1986, Bjørn and his brother Tore started Read-gruppen, that worked with

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

in the North Sea for the oil industry. In 1993, following the bankruptcy of the airline Busy Bee, Kjos and several employees started Norwegian Air Shuttle, that used the newly available

Fokker 50 The Fokker 50 is a turboprop-powered airliner manufactured and supported by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It was designed as an improved version of the successful Fokker F27 Friendship. The Fokker 60 is a stretched freighter version of t ...

aircraft to fly regional routes in Western Norway for Braathens SAFE, routes which had previously been served by Busy Bee. Kjos chaired the company from 1993 to 1996. Kjos also owned part of

Lufttransport Lufttransport is a Norwegian helicopter and fixed-wing airline that operates primarily air ambulance helicopters and planes for the Norwegian and Swedish governments. In addition the airline offers services including surveillance for the Norwe ...

, where he was chair until 2005, when it was sold to Norsk Helikopter. In 2002, Kjos transformed Norwegian Air Shuttle into a

, and leased eight

Boeing 737-300 The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300, first flew in Febru ...

s. With the 2004 take-over by SAS of Braathens, Norwegian Air Shuttle quickly became Norway's second largest airline. Since Kjos took over as CEO of the regional airline in 2002, Norwegian Air Shuttle has become the second-largest airline in Scandinavia.

Honours and awards

* Rockford Award Recognized for Outstanding Contribution to Regional Workforce November 2014 *

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

Entrepreneur Of The Year 2009 *

Manpower Inc. ManpowerGroup (formerly known as Manpower Inc.) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded in 1948 by Elmer Winter and Aaron Scheinfeld, ManpowerGroup is the third-largest staffing firm i ...

"Leader of the year" 2009

Personal life

Kjos is married to Gerd Helen Kjos. Together they have three adult children; son Lars Ola (b. 1978), daughters Guri Helene (b. 1980) and Anna Helene (b. 1983) the latter is also a pilot working for Norwegian. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys hiking and sailing, and owns an apartment in

Lofoten Lofoten ( , ; ; ) is an archipelago and a Districts of Norway, traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches, and untouched lands. T ...

where he spends a lot of time, as well as a cabin in

Hardangervidda Hardangervidda () is a mountain plateau ( Norwegian: ''vidde'') in central southern Norway, covering parts of Vestland, Telemark, and Buskerud counties. It is the largest plateau of its kind in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate, and o ...

. In 2006, he débuted with the spy thriller ''The Murmansk Affair'' (). In his public appearances, he is known to be an extremely jovial man. In 2016 he starred as 'A legendary Aviator Man' in

Ylvis Ylvis () are a Norwegian comedy duo consisting of brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker. They debuted as professional variety artists in 2000 and have appeared in several countries in variety shows, comedy concerts, television shows, radio sho ...

' song 'Engine for Gabriel' where he advises the young group, to get the 'Rotax 914' (or similar) for Gabriel Nderitu to fulfill his dream of flying a self made aircraft.

Wealth

In March 2015, Kjos debated

wealth concentration The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or economic heterogeneity. The distribution of wealth differs from the income distribution in that ...

with

Thomas Piketty Thomas Piketty (; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is a professor of economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, associate chair at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and Centennial Professor of Economics ...

Skavlan ''Skavlan'' was a Norwegian-Swedish television talk show hosted by Norwegian journalist Fredrik Skavlan. It premiered in Sweden on Sveriges Television (SVT) in January 2009, and the first guests to appear on the show were former Prime Minister ...

, a popular Norwegian-Swedish television talk show. On air, Piketty pressured Kjos to disclose his

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, so net w ...

after Kjos claimed that he had paid $2m USD in taxes, this according to Kjos being "ten times as much tax as

e had E, or e, is the fifth Letter (alphabet), letter and the second vowel#Written vowels, vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others wo ...

earned" and representing a "1,000 % tax rate". Kjos later referred to a salary of a "couple of hundred thousand dollars". Kjos was very reluctant to estimate his net worth, but the host

Fredrik Skavlan Fredrik Skavlan (born 2 September 1966) is a Norwegian TV host, journalist, and cartoonist. He hosted the talk show '' Først & sist'' from 1998 to 2007, for which he won the 1999 Norwegian Television Award for best host as well as the talk show ...

suggested an amount of one to two billion, likely referring to an estimate in Norwegian kroner. At that time, Kjos held via HBK Invest 20.5% of the shares of

, the company at that time having a market cap of about $1B USD. In Norway, a wealth tax rate of 1.0% was levied on net assets exceeding 1,000,000 NOK as of 2014. /www.skatteetaten.no/en/Rates/Wealth-tax/?ssy=2014#formulaDiv

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kjos, Bjorn 1946 births Living people Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy alumni Royal Norwegian Air Force personnel Norwegian company founders Norwegian airline chief executives Norwegian aviators 21st-century Norwegian novelists 20th-century Norwegian judges People from Ringerike (municipality) Norwegian expatriates in the United States Norwegian Air Shuttle University of Oslo alumni