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On Friday (2 December) the DoT quietly released a statement confirming that it has awarded Norwegian a permit to fly to/from the US from a base in Ireland despite very vocal opposition from a number of US carriers. This was excellent news for the airline and for travelers hoping to see transatlantic fares stay low and, what’s even better, is that the good news hasn’t ended there.
Norwegian’s Proposed New Flights
Airlines appear to be falling over themselves to offer more and more flights across the Atlantic and there seems to be little or no capacity discipline being exercised at all.
In recent weeks we’ve heard of American’s plans to bring back a second daily service between Philadelphia and London, we’ve seen Virgin Atlantic add a third daily service between Los Angeles and London, we’ve seen LOT announce new services to Chicago and to Los Angeles and now Norwegian is joining in the fun.
From 2017 Norwegian plans to offer over 50% more flights between the UK and the US than it already does….and that comes on top of the 100% increase is services we’ve seen in 2016.
New York Will Get Double Daily Service
Per Norwegian:
From 10 August, Norwegian’s daily service from London Gatwick to New York will double, with two flights per day now being offered. The additional daily flight will offer a 9am arrival time in New York, allowing business travellers to attend all-important meetings throughout the day and depart the same evening. Holidaymakers can also make the most of their trip by arriving in the Big Apple bright and early to instantly enjoy the energy and excitement of New York City.
The proposed schedule for the new flights, effective 10 August 2017, is as follows:
DY7013 LGW 06:00 – 09:00 JFK
DY7014 JFK 12:00 – 23:55 LGW
Los Angeles Will Get Daily Service
Currently Norwegian flys between Los Angeles and London Gatwick on 5 out of 7 days but, effective 15 April 2017, the airline plans to offer the service on all 7 days.
The schedule will look like this:
DY7093 LGW 13:10 – 16:30 LAX
DY7094 LAX 18:45 – 13:15+1 day LGW
Oakland Will Get 5 Daily Flights
Oakland is still a reasonably new route for Norwegian which the airline currently operates 3x/week but, from 18 April 2017, the service is scheduled to be expanded to 5x/week on the following schedule:
DY7072 LGW 13:00 – 16:00 OAK
DY7074 OAK 18:50 – 12:55+1 day LGW
Flights between Gatwick and Oakland will operate on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Sunday.
What makes this news particularly interesting is that it means that Norwegian will operate more flights to Oakland than British Airways….which itself only recently announced 4x/week service between Gatwick and Oakland.
More Flights To Florida
Effective 13 April 2017 Norwegian will offer a second weekly flight to Ft Lauderdale (on Mondays) and from 20 April 2017 the airline will add an extra flight to Orlando giving it a 3x/week service to the home of Mickey Mouse.
Bottom Line
Norwegian is adding an extra 12 flights from London Gatwick to the US in 2017 (that’s 24 flights in total if you include the return flights) and that should be very good news for consumers.
The US-UK routes are traditionally the most expensive transatlantic routes out there (partly due to UK taxes and partly because airlines can get away with it) so the more capacity we see on these routes the better – simple supply and demand economics dictates that the more seats there are on offer between the UK and US the more pressure there will be on airlines to keep prices competitive.
On top of all this it’s worth remembering that, although Norwegian may well be a low-cost airline, it still offers new 787 Dreamliners on all its transatlantic routes and it doesn’t offer any less space in Economy Class than a lot of the so-called “full service” airlines – we’re finally seeing real competition across the Atlantic.
