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If there’s one airline that’s been on a serious mission to expand over the past 18 months it’s Norwegian. The European low-cost carrier now flys routes from London to the US, will soon be flying from Paris to the US and has plans to fly from Ireland to the US as well. On top of all that, the airline also has a significant network of flights around Europe which it operates with a fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft…..all of which are equipped with free WiFi – not bad for a low-cost carrier.
Now the airline has launched a new route out of Edinburgh.
Norwegian Launches New Route Between Edinburgh and Barcelona
As of yesterday (15 June) Norwegian kicked off yet another new European route – this time from Edinburgh to Barcelona – with fares from as little as £34.90/$50 one-way.
The schedule for the new twice weekly service is as follows:
D85511 EDI 09:55 – 13:35 BCN (Wed)
D85511 EDI 10:05 – 13:45 BCN (Sat)
D85510 BCN 07:30 – 09:15 EDI (Wed)
D85510 BCN 07:40 – 09:25 EDI (Sat)
The Edinburgh – Barcelona route will be Norwegian’s 6th route out of the Scottish capital and continues the trend of low-cost airlines filling the void that British Airways left behind when it stopped flying internationally out of anywhere other than London.
I took a quick look to see how realistic the claim of fares “from £34.50 one-way” really was and this is what I found:
July outbound fares from Edinburgh didn’t get any lower than £70/$100 but there was a date, for the return journey that only cost £30/$43:
August wasn’t much better…..
…but it’s worth remembering that these are peak travel months in Europe and, if you can be flexible with your dates, it’s still possible to fly Edinburgh-Barcelona round trip for £100 – £150 ($142 – $213) and that’s not too bad.
September and October showed similar fares and, when it came to November, either the route is stopping for the winter or Norwegian is yet to load fares because there was zero availability.
Bottom Line
While this route will almost certainly be a hit with vacationers there is another use for it that may be even better.
This could be a very good set of flights (for Edinburgh based flyers) to use to position to Barcelona to connect to any great Business Class flights that Iberia/American Airlines post for travel out of Spain.
I think Ryanair is the only other airline that currently operates a non-stop service between the two cities and, given a choice between Ryanair and Norwegian, I know which one I’d take!
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Well done Norwegian & great news for residents of Scotland’s central belt. Edinburgh Airport is serving us well. Shame that, as you have noted, we have been abandoned by ‘British’ Airways – known as London Airways – with the exception of their London routes. If AA, Turkish, Qatar, Etihad, Continental & Delta (amongst others) can make money flying from Edinburgh, why not BA?
BA may regret its decision to stop flying internationally from the regions. Most of the things the airline is doing at the moment appear to be an effort to counter the perceived threat from the low cost carriers…but how do you counter the low cost carriers if you’ve ceded all the ground to them already?