Norwegian Air takes fight to rivals with ‘cheapest ever’ transatlantic flights
Monday, 24 Feb, 2017
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Norwegian Air has announced new flights from the US to five cities in the UK and Ireland from just $65 each way, intensifying price pressure on its big name legacy rivals.
The low-cost airline will launch 10 new routes with 38 new weekly transatlantic flights this summer from Edinburgh, Belfast, Cork, Shannon and Dublin.
Flights will serve three destinations on the East Coast, with a focus on smaller, less congested US airports with ‘good’ access into New York and Boston.
It is following the strategy of several other European low cost airlines like Ryanair, by using airports with significantly lower landing charges, resulting in lower fares to customers, it says.
It is using Stewart International (for New York City), Providence (90 minutes from Boston) and Bradley International, in the heart of Connecticut, which is about two hours from New York City and Boston.
The new transatlantic routes will be operated on brand new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
From June 15, Norwegian will launch new direct services from Edinburgh to Stewart, Providence and Bradley.
Flights from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Stewart and Providence start on July 1.
The first ever transatlantic flights from Cork (to Providence), and new US routes from Dublin and Shannon (to Providence and Stewart) will also launch on July 1.
Norwegian Air says it is just the start and expects to ramp up services at Bradley International over time.
"This is just the beginning, we have a lot of aircraft coming in, so if we succeed here, we’re going to put lots more aircraft and destinations out of Bradley," said Lars Sande, senior vice president for sales and distribution at Norwegian Air Shuttle.
Norwegian already operates low-cost flights to eight major US cities from London Gatwick.
Although the offer is an introductory limited time one, the airline describes it as the ‘cheapest ever’ on a transatlantic route.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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